15 ⚓ Video/Spam ⚓ Gather yourselves, with all your heart and strength

[hearrrtofgold]

[Video]
Duke Crocker of the Cape Rouge calling Haven P.D. Anyone out there? [He’s got only small hope that anyone will answer, almost certain that Audrey and Nathan won’t. But still, he’d come through the last time the network glitched (before he showed up on the Barge), as had she. Maybe it could happen again with them, or anyone he was familiar with from back home.

He pauses for a long time, mulling over what he’s about to share, and suddenly blurts it out.] Oprah Winfrey.

[Gym Spam, evening]
[After the last of the messages had trickled in, Duke had shaken himself off and tried to calm himself walking Brownie, fixing himself a very heavy chicken salad for supper, and tried to do some yoga poses. None of the activities had provided him any peace, and he eventually decided to just embrace the discomfort and beat the crap out of something.

So here he is, standing in the gym with knuckles bound in tape and taking out his frustrations on a punching bag. He’s more than competent in street-fighting, not exceptional but still practiced and forceful. He doesn’t even remember his first fistfight, although he’s sure he lost it, and that drives him on.]

Comments

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

The Alpha bit someone that should never have been bitten. They say the form you take after the bite is a reflection of who you truly are. This boy became a kanima, a creature with no identity. That's why it seeks a master, it's a tool of vengeance. But the guy...got better. Once his crisis was resolved...he became a normal werewolf.

[Suddenly she spins, throwing a kick at one of the punch pads.]

We don't have vampires...but we have Gerard Argent. Or we did, until Scott stopped him. And saved me.

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

Ah, that's a horse of a different color. [Kanima... Duke has traveled to South America before and picked up a few local legends. That one sounds familiar, and he frowns deeply.] Were-jaguar?

Dammit! [Instinctively he brings the punch-pads in place to block her kick, definitely uninterested in receiving a foot to the mouth or chest. He breathes in deep to recover and takes a small step back.]

I feel that. Haven has... weird problems.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

Lizard man, in our case, but way to know your South American mythology. Literally, giant lizard guy with paralytic venom.

[She forgets herself after another series of punches, then comes at Duke full-throttle with a side kick to his outstretched left, punch-pad covered hand.]

And my grandfather used him to try and kill me, after I nearly killed for him. [She's breathing hard now, a mixture of emotion and exertion as she steps back, realizing she's taking out her aggression on Duke now and rests her hands on her thighs as she bends over for a second, collecting herself.]

Can Haven beat that?

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

Please tell me you didn't fight a Gorn. [He grins momentarily while raising the pads.] You got him though, right?

[Duke has to press hard to block all her punches, and has to place one foot back behind the other to brace himself against her kick even behind the pads. Allison may be young and a human, but she's powerful.] Crap, [he says, eloquently.] I'm sorry.

Haven can... [He tilts his head.]

Tbere was a Trouble that brought people back as ghosts. I talked to my dad - he's been dead since I was eight. He tried to convince me to start killing in the family name. [Duke laughs briefly, humorlessly.] The man with the Trouble didn't want to deal with it.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

[Allison shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath, because she's letting her emotions get the better of her. She's not channeling them to work or hunt, she's losing herself in them, and she can't do that.

She has to thread the needle...hold onto the pain and the anger without letting them control her.

The people she loves, the things she cares about...when they can be used against her, she makes herself forget them, cuts them out of herself, but the bad things...what she hates, what she fears...she has to store them away, so she keeps Gerard and puts him back in that box within her head and heart reserved for him, until she needs that bitterness and hatred to fuel her, to take her to that place where she hunts and kills.

When she's steady again, she opens her eyes and offers up a small, apologetic smile before she returns to her punches...this time, not trying to see how hard or how angry she can hit, focusing instead on the center of each pad, making each strike as accurate as possible.]

Tell me more? [It's a question, a gentle one, not a prompt or a demand.] About your family, about these...Trouble things. Is that what people in Haven call the supernatural?

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

[The moment Allison has to take in order to ground herself, to ready herself for the next series of blows, makes Duke hang back a little bit. The pads are still held at the ready but he relaxes, looking at her with a wistful expression.

Then she's striking again and he has to redouble his efforts trying to keep her punches at bay.] Not exactly. It's what they call weird abilities that run in different families. [He feints back a bit to avoid a particularly close punch.] They're also called Curses.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

So, then...it's what you call the supernatural?

[That comes with an extra hard blow to the left pad, this one on purpose and accompanied by a playful smile.]

Supernatural is supernatural, Duke, even if it's hereditary. Or bad, y'know?

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

[Duke rolls his eyes but holds his ground against her punch this time.] It's what we call our kind of supernatural. If wizards started battling fairies, that would be supernatural too.

Then again if that happens, it's probably due to a Trouble. A lot of the myths in my world are based on Troubles.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

[Allison quirks a curious eyebrow at that admission.] Yeah? Ever come up against anyone with a werewolf style Trouble?

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

Not exactly. There was a guy who accidentally turned all the animal shelter's rabid dogs into humans but that's not the same. There were a couple of wendigos once.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

Wendigos...yeah, we have those, too. I mean, I've never seen one, but I've seen them in our bestiary. Cannibalistic shapeshifters...they're rare, and they're dangerous. How did you deal with them?

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

The ones we met aren't shapeshifters, just fast and superhumanly sensitive. Two of them could control the cannibal urges and survived off of hunting animals. The third one tried as hard as she could but couldn't get a handle on it.

We talked to them, and protected them and tried to help them. These three weren't evil, they just had a Curse. They were regular kids, sisters, and their Trouble kicked in when their parents died. Suddenly they needed to eat people in order to survive, and they didn't want to any more than you or I would.

You know when you said the Troubles are what we call the supernatural? That's not exactly it. The Troubles are what cause the supernatural.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

[Allison huffs a little, shaking her head.] Not the way things are back home. Oh, there are things like werewolves that aren't dangerous unless they choose to be, but the rest...it's a sad fact that there are a lot of things out there that just are.

[Like Jackson, who still had to die to be saved. Like Stiles, who's destined to lose his humanity if she doesn't get her deal. Like Peter Hale...who she can't kill for the sole reason that she actually has to set an example for her father.]

Supernatural things...maybe your Troubles are where they start? But when the line between where they start and what they are goes away? They end with hunters. Hunters like the Argents, families like mine...

[She stops, lifting her taped hands as she catches her breath.]

Another splash of blood on hands like these.

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

One thing you learn fast in Haven is that no one wants a Trouble. [He thinks of Nathan, which flickers into thoughts of Jordan, then to dozens of other Havenites. It circles back on Audrey, of course. James, the Barn, the Hunter storm. Nobody had wanted any of that. Ignore the crazy Troubled people who used Curses to their advantage.] Well, almost nobody.

[There were people like Harry Nix, like Arla Cogan, who had been amoral even before their Troubles kicked in, and had become monsters after they did.

And Allison is starting to sound like Simon, like the Rev's men did when they pushed Roy - not always wrong but far too black and white for the varied spectrum of his morality. Duke doesn't agree, just nods a little.]

I don't know if your world has Troubles. If it does, it makes sense there would be Argents, and in Haven there's a reason there are Crockers - but hell, wouldn't it be great if they didn't need us?

[He doesn't stop smiling, but his face loses its humor.] You should see what happens with a splash of Troubled blood.

[gym spam]

[theresalwayshope]

[She doesn't hesitate: for her primarily cut and dried view of the world, with very subtle shades of grey not obvious to the casual observer, she nods emphatically at Duke's version of a perfect world.]

Not being needed would be...amazing. But at the same time...I might also go crazy, you know? Dad and I...he's from the point where we gave it up. We retired, we were just done. Living normal lives, staying out of the supernatural crap. [She pauses, wiping her forearm across her forehead.] His call came from an abandoned bank, where a pack of Alphas fought my pack. He probably had just figured out, before he got my call, that I was there to protect my friends when I wasn't supposed to be.

I just...I couldn't stay away. [And when she'd fired that first shot after so long...

She's never done drugs, but she imagines that's what it has to feel like. A rush, a sense of peace...a certainty about everything in the world, including her place in it.

His remark about blood, though...the way the light in his face sort of drains away...she stills, planting her hands on her hips for a moment. She's torn...but she's also curious.

Swallowing hard, she takes a deep breath.]

What happens?

[gym spam]

[hearrrtofgold]

Someone was threatening your friends. You have an obligation to help them. [Duke doesn't like admitting it but it's unfortunately true. Allison couldn't let her pack face danger any more than he could duck out on Audrey and Nathan during a disaster. That need to help, to defend even if you didn't want to, is one thing they have in common.

Like their reaction to the violence.

He hesitates, glances toward his jacket on the edge of the mat. There's a vial of Troubled blood in the pocket, one he keeps just in case he needs to fight. He could take it, uncap it, pour it into his palm - then tear the punching bag off its carabiner and hurl it across the gym. He could. And it wouldn't hurt anything, but he shakes his head and looks back at Allison.]

When a Crocker touches Troubled blood, we get powerful and violent. We're supposed to kill the Troubled and our Curse gives us an extra weapon and incentive.

[It's an unpleasant subject, and he tries to turn the conversation away from it.]

So, you don't think a normal life's for you?