Chapter Eight:
Actions

Disclaimer:I do not own the cartoonStorm Hawks. It and all its respectable characters are © to Asaph "Ace" Fipke and Nerd Corps. Lupin and all plot contents within are © to me. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I don't own them.

Note: I didn't get to use the quote I wanted to this chapter. Again. I has a sad. Anyway, have fun with this chapter, and remember, reviews or notes are always welcome, appreciated, and loved although they are not entirely required. :P

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"You pretend to buck the system, pretend to be a rebel, claim to hate rules. But all you do is substitute your own rules for society's. Now it's a nice, simple rule—tell the blunt, honest truth in the starkest, darkest way. And what will be, will be. And what will be, should be. And everyone else…is a coward. But you're wrong. It's not cowardly not to call someone an idiot. People aren't tactful, or polite because it's nice. They do it…because they've got an ounce of humility. Because they know that they will make mistakes, and they know that their actions have consequences. And they know…that those consequences are their fault. Why do you want so bad not to be human, huh?"
- Jack Moriarty, "House M.D."

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Rains came and went in Los Angeles, few and far in between, but the heat was relentless and nearly ever-lasting. The day following the late evening's races was no exception. Aerrow had halted the use of the Condor's engine power to keep up any air conditioning or heat going, and it was to be used sparingly. The engine crystals were running on their last legs, and the Solaris crystal was running on its last legs, struggling to recharge itself through the sun. Piper estimated they had only days left, if even that, of power from it before its decay rate took its toll.

Lupin, in the meantime, had no clue of their true situation. She had disappeared yet again, while the Storm Hawks gathered around the tabletop in the pilot's bay. Stork was busying himself repairing odd bits and baubles around his beloved ship. The others convened over the map Lupin had helped them mark, as well as the quick, yet practical and accurate sketches of the Dark Ace and Master Cyclonis stared impassively up at the ceiling. Finn had suggested drawing cartoony moustaches on the both of them, but Piper nixed that rather quickly.

Kosmo was sitting beside Junko, and had seemed to take a liking to the Wallop, and vice versa. Lupin had, in turn, left him in charge of her pets while she was away doing…

Well, whatever it was she was doing.

She was a secretive one, but she was helping them. She could keep her secrets, so long as she didn't turn around and backstab them. Not that it mattered much. If they didn't find Master Cyclonis and the Dark Ace soon, things would probably only get progressively worse for the Storm Hawks.

"So, she's going to have her old crew look over here, on this quadrant of the city, while we can start up here."

"She said she'd also gotten a few others to agree to help after a few calls this morning. They'll keep an eye on things up a little north of us, over here."

"Just how many friends does she have?" Finn stared at the map with his brows knitting in close and it took him several belated seconds to realize it had grown oddly quiet and he looked up to see the others staring at him. "What?"

"It…isn't really relevant, is it? She's getting us help without really giving us away. We should be grateful for that much." Piper intoned, a brow raising, her lips quirking and her hip jutting out slightly. Finn knew that pose. It was the 'don't argue with me when I'm right' pose. He was unfazed and unimpressed.

"What? I'm just saying—she just doesn't seem the type to have friends. She punched her so-called buddy in the face last night, you both saw that."

Stork gave an ugly snorting laughing from his spot, the sound echoing into the corner pocket panel he was half-buried in. "I was wondering when something like that would happen. Didn't take her long to snap."

Aerrow crossed his arms over his chest and nodded back to the map. "It doesn't matter. Mal's helping us. Well, her, mostly. But it's helping us too, so whatever semantics they have going on, it's up to them to work out when we're long gone."

"More like 'romantics'. The guy was all googly-eyed over her. Tell me I wasn't the only one to notice." Finn sighed, stretching and bringing his hands behind his head. "It's a shame, too. She's kinda pretty. You know, when her face isn't all scrunched up or her eyes all squinty and angry-looking and stuff. And if that scar wasn't there…"

"Well, I'm sure you'd be more attractive too, if you weren't so damned stupid and loud, but you don't hear me throwing judgments around to other people behind your back. But I guess some women might find that odd set of qualities attractive. Maybe I should just get my matchmaker skills on and find you a girl just as dumb."

For the second time, the werewolf had managed to sneak up on the Storm Hawks and it instantly made them all uncomfortable with how she'd done it. Stork yelped from where he was at the sound of his voice and let out a loud, abrasive curse when he slammed his head on the open panel's backside as he slid out.

"Don't you know how to knock?"

She ignored his barbed comment and cocked her head at Finn, who was sheepishly trying to edge his way behind Junko. Kosmo came trotting around the table with a happy dog grin. Lupin rubbed at his scruff vigorously and a faint smile alighted her face, if only briefly.

"Um…we were just overlooking the map you helped us with," Piper began, turning the conversation over a new leaf. Lupin turned her mismatched gaze on the other woman and nodded.

"Good. I haven't heard any news quite yet, but, if we're lucky, we'll see something. I just got in contact with a few other people, managed to widen the net so we can have a more in-depth search."

"What about your police friend? The guy you were talking to the other day? Can't he help somehow, too?" Aerrow inquired, and almost immediately regretted it. The hard look she gave him, he had a feeling it wasn't really directed at him. It did little to ease him knowing that, though. Her jaw clenched and her right eye—the blue one—flashed yellow-gold for a split moment, making both eyes match. Then it disappeared and the blue settled back again and she looked away.

"Don't trust cops. Even ones that claim to be your friends. Charlie's a good guy. But I don't trust him. He has to work within a structure. He has to work within the law. That takes time—precious time I know you guys don't have. If it ends up with consequences bouncing off onto me and I have to bounce out of town after you guys go back home, so be it."

Kosmo groaned and leaned into Lupin. The others froze, stunned at Lupin's painfully earnest answer.

"But…you told Mal you'd come back." Piper said.

Lupin smiled, and it was rare one. It was small and sad and very brief. "I told him what he needed to hear. I know he misses me. I know the crew misses me. But…I'm not like the little girl they used to know, not anymore. I'm dangerous, and I'd prefer not to get them hurt because of me. There's a reason I don't talk with many people that I used to associate with anymore." She faltered. "I…I lost a friend over a year ago because of that. I lost him to a monster because I wasn't careful. I know Mal said they don't blame me, but I know that's not completely true and I don't intend to make the same mistake. I can't. As soon as this is all done, I'll probably hit the road. There ain't much left for me here, anyway."

"What about your parents? They're still alive, aren't they?"

She didn't answer at first. She occupied herself with rubbing Kosmo's ears, flopping them this way and that, although it looked like she was mulling over her answers. She did so carefully and diligently, choosing her words with care.

"It would be best if I didn't contact them much anymore, and I haven't done so in a while. I told you before. I'm dangerous. My…kind are dangerous. And they don't exactly look at me in a kindly light. Werewolves think themselves superior over humans, and a lot of other monsters do too, for that matter. I live amongst humans and don't eat them like other werewolves do. I'm not exactly on the top of their lists for that. Too soft-hearted for their tastes, I guess." She shrugged, as though it didn't matter, and it probably didn't to her. Or maybe it did. They couldn't tell. "It would probably be best if I disappeared for a while. I don't want anyone else I care about to be hurt. I was just looking for an excuse for a while, and…this is as perfect as it can get, I suppose."

She straightened up and nodded to the map. "In a few hours, we should hear word. I had some of the best underground hackers help get into traffic and city cams. If those bastards are anywhere within range of them, we'll know in an instant. Shouldn't take too long now."

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"You're really selfish, you know."

Lupin's ears flicked at the sound of the voice behind her. She continued to rummage around her car's engine, checking over the belts and pistons, the cylinders and fluids, making sure everything was still as it should be since her impromptu return to the racing scene last night. It was the first real hard driving sequence she'd conducted since her final repairs, and she wanted to ensure everything was holding up the way it should.

"Calling up old buddies, dredging up all your old contacts, making promises to people and then bailing out? And what about your parents? They're your parents!"

The werewolf checked over her shoulder to see Piper staring at her with a passionate, irate anger colouring her eyes, her face, her body language. Lupin went back to her engine block, shrugging off the woman's words like water off a duck's back.

"If you're done yelling at me—which isn't really necessary, I can hear just fine, thank you—mind handing me that tool over yonder, pumpkin?"

Piper's cheeks flushed. "Don't. Call. Me. That."

"What, buttercup? Gonna get mad?"

If it were possible, the other woman's cheeks flared even redder beneath her dark skin. Lupin smirked, knowing she had a bit of a gift at getting under people's skins. And she had gotten quite good at it.

"Don't you dare mock me."

Lupin stood at last, straightening up and turning to face the crystal master. For all her worth, Lupin was, quite bluntly, short. She was shorter than Piper by almost a foot, but Piper knew the presence of a leader. She had seen it in Aerrow, she had seen it in Starling, she had seen it in other Sky Knights. She had seen it in Master Cyclonis as well, as much as she hated to admit it. This was a woman who was used to giving orders, and expecting them to be followed. The hard stare, the rigid back, the tilted back face with a jutted, proud chin. It was all there. Confidence, bravado. Unyielding and unmoving.

But there was nothing charismatic about how Lupin held herself. Only confidence, and it was borderline arrogant. And yet, Piper couldn't help but feel that there was a sense of brokenness there as well, like the werewolf was putting up such a strong, boastful front to hide shattered or missing pieces that haven't quite yet been fixed or replaced. It was almost sad, and not quite in a sympathetic manner, either. She also knew this woman was dangerous, a woman who had claimed to be a monster. She was a woman who, according to Aerrow, had the power to control a blazing fire or put it out at a whim.

Although, Piper had a strong feeling that Lupin would do no such thing against her. She wouldn't summon flame to burn or maim her. It was only a gut feeling, a deeply rooted instinct, but she trusted it all the same.

Suddenly, Lupin wasn't so intimidating. She was a sad, broken thing hiding behind a tough exterior. Something had happened to her, something sad and horrible and painful, but any helping hand extended to her was met with harsh rebuke and vicious backlash. Whatever that something was, it hurt the smaller woman enough to keep her from connecting with people, prevent her from fully trusting others.

Piper's anger melted somewhat and she relaxed, if only marginally.

"You're being selfish," she repeated, this time more softly, to which Lupin raised a brow and waited for a further explanation. "Are you really going to rouse up all of your old friends and shut them out as soon as this is over?"

The smaller woman turned away as an answer. "You're not going to be here to see what I will or won't do. I don't see how my personal life choices are any of your business. Focus on going home, not on what I'm going to do after you lot leave."

"But it just—it doesn't seem fair to your friends! And what about your family?"

Lupin paused in her fidgeting, twitching, tinkering. She leaned on an arm on the lip of the engine compartment, the other hand on her hip, fingers drumming along the different tools that stuck up at odd angles from their pouches. The tool belt itself was riding low, her shirt starting to slip high and that's when Piper noticed the pale, jagged marks peeking out from beneath the other woman's shirt. It took her a moment to process what she was seeing and when she realized what it was, she felt her breath hitch in her throat.

The pale lines were scars made by claws, giant ones. They were scars that looked like they had gone deep when they were made, deep enough to sever the spine. Her eyes roamed back up, wondering how the hell Lupin survived such a brutal attack, something that should have killed her, never mind crippling her.

As though feeling eyes upon her, Lupin straightened, tugging her shirt back down and tucking it beneath her tool belt, her tail bristling and upright. The werewolf glanced over her shoulder at Piper, her eyes flashing gold, and a quiet snarl in her throat.

"I'm giving you one warning and that's it, Piper. Stay out of my life's business. I'm respecting your wishes to not stick my nose into your squad's life stories. Respect my request and stay out of mine. What I do or don't do with my life's choices, they won't be your problem to worry about when you go home. Dohn luh ma?"

Piper stared, the argument that she had lined up deflating in an instant, realizing that yes, Lupin was right. Yet, Pipet wanted to press the issue, make the werewolf see reason, but she couldn't. Lupin was right, in a way. Her life choices weren't going to be seen. They would no longer have to deal with the werewolf, nor would they be dependent on her help—or what passed for it, anyway. They would, hopefully if things went right for them, be in their own world, separated completely.

Despite the rebukes that hid on the backs of her teeth, she swallowed them back down, her ire dying down along with it. She didn't want to admit the other woman was right. She wanted to sit her ass down and make her listen to reason. Listening to the werewolf calmly admit she'd uproot herself and leave her friends and family behind, just on some spooked up fear of her hurting them, it grated on Piper's nerves. She could see while, yes Lupin had a temper, she also seemed to be largely in control of herself. How could she ever be that much of a risk to people when she clearly had control of herself? Even when she was angry, she always seemed to hold herself back.

Slowly, Piper relented with a grudging nod to the other woman. She couldn't judge. Not that she had family to worry about, mind. Family that would worry and fret while their child was away doing god knew what in some far off, excluded half of the planet, no. The first war against Cyclonia had claimed them, along with countless others whose parents went into battle alongside the Sky Knights all those years ago.

She still had friends, however.

They were other Sky Knights and their squadrons that she and the Storm Hawks had left behind in Atmos when they had chased after Master Cyclonis into the Far Side. They were friends who might possibly be still waiting for them to return home, triumphant in their quest to stop the madwoman. And in a way, they were family, too. Even if they weren't related by blood or even species in some cases, they were her family and the rest of the Storm Hawks' family as well. To say that they weren't would be worse than calling Radarr a simple house pet and nothing more.

Lupin watched her with a stare that would terrify most out of their wits, but Piper was recollecting hers and withdrawing from the situation. She wanted her friends and family safe and that much was admirable. But, there was nothing that she could say at this point in time to convince the werewolf her point of view was skewed, that it was still selfish, even if there were elements of altruism lacing her intents.

"Fine, I…okay. Fine. I'll just…leave you alone, then."

She didn't like admitting defeat, but there was little she could do in this point in time to convince the woman otherwise. And she was right. Piper reluctantly relented that fact, and turned on her heel to leave the werewolf where she'd found her. Just as she opened the door, Kosmo came bounding through, barking excitedly. Piper jumped out of the way in surprise, watching the dog trot over to his master. She watched as Lupin paused in her work to stoop over and hug her pet, the tension and wary guardedness that had lined her face moments before seemed to lift.

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Her phone started going off the hook by the time she fell back into her temporary rack. It was late, perhaps in the early hours before dawn. For once, she had been left on her own in the bay to her own devices, and it might have had something to do with her vehicle being held there. That, and she wasn't entirely being approachable at the moment. She knew she was being unfair. She knew she was being aloof with the Storm Hawks. A part of her wanted to care, and perhaps, a part of her really, truly did. But the rest of her wasn't in a state to waste time stopping what she was doing just to coddle and care for their feelings. She had a job to do. She had someone to hunt.

She had tried to sniff them out at her burnt garage, but the trail of various burnt objects—oil, metal, plastic, and various hazardous chemicals being among chief few—were too overpowering to pick up a decent trace. Not to mention, none of the Storm Hawks had anything to correspond with a feasible scent to reference from for the Dark Ace or Master Cyclonis.

Reaching for her phone, she clicked the answer button. "Hullo?"

"Well, well, little miss Singe. Thought we'd never get ahold of you."

She sat up, briefly taken by surprise. Then the surprise melted and she crooned back, "Nightmare. How good of you to call back. And so timely, if a little early in the day. What's the news?"

"Your two marks have been busy, busy, busy my little Singey. They are a-gathering in—get ready for the drum roll—da-da-da-daaaa! An abandoned warehouse. Classical move, right?"

"I figured that much. I guess I can call off the search."

"What, you got Mal and the rest to scour the streets?"

"Something like that," Lupin sighed as she, grudgingly so, sat up more fully and pulled her laptop over to her from the bedside desk. Kosmo, who had leapt up onto the bed before her, shuffled closer and nudged at her arm with his snout. She pushed him away, as well as the three cats that had decided now was certainly a good time to swarm her from their carriers whence they came from. "Shoo. Shoo. Git, I said git!"

"If you really feel that way about me, fine then. Good talking to you, too."

"Not you, my—cats, git!" She shooed them away and booted up her computer. A few keystrokes later after it had, she was already filtering through her email traffic as she spoke, "You send me what I asked for? Ah, yes, here it is. I see it. Beautiful."

"Do I do anything other than beautiful work?"

"The Tracker Work back in '01. That's all I'll say."

"…that was a nonevent."

"Uh-huh," Lupin intoned back, smirking. "That's what I thought."

"You have a very bad habit of creating nonevents wherever you go. Like the Toaster Incident."

"That never happened." Lupin replied quickly. Nightmare cackled like a hyena on the other line.

"Told ya. Still same ole Singe."

"Uh-huh," she replied in the same monotone voice, skimming Nightmare's email. The message itself was short. Coordinates were provided but that certainly wasn't the coup de grâce of her endeavors to end this ordeal quickly. It was all the attached files. "Ah. Perfect. This is wonderful. Thank you again, Nightmare, you are a bona fide genius."

"Oh, thank you, thank you. I'll be here until Halloween."

Lupin's smile fell away at the reminder. "Huh. That's right. Halloween is a few days away."

"Wow. You have a horrible sense of time, don't you?" Nightmare paused, then added, "You gonna go see Wallace and the others for their opening night?"

The werewolf didn't answer, not right away. Instead, she drummed her fingers lightly over the keys of her laptop. Kosmo whined and she stopped drumming briefly to reach over and rub his head.

"No. No, I won't make it. Listen, thanks for all the help, send my love to everyone else too when you see them. I gotta go."

"Singe, Singe, wait, wait, wait—!"

Too late, she hung up and put her phone on silent and went back to browsing through the files on the email. Her mind, however, kept wandering. Excitement and a sense of accomplishment was making her jittery. She was almost done. She could finish up and then she could focus on what she wanted to do after, depending on how things went. If she had to, she could disappear. She was good at that.

Don't count your chickens before the eggs hatch, she reminded herself, even when her mind drifted to the conversation—if it could even be called that—she and Piper had had earlier.

Lupin once again reflected how she had purposefully gotten under the other woman's skin, if only to get her to leave her alone. She hadn't been in the mood for company and to be sought out like that ticked her off. It still wasn't fair, a small voice prompted her. They were offering her temporary shelter until this whole thing blew over, until they left. It was partly why she'd delivered the final blow of the conversation: to get Piper to drop the issue and leave. It was a bit of an ultimatum, but it was also a difficult truth to swallow. Her life's choices and personal direction weren't anyone's business but her own. If she chose to up and leave, then it was on her.

The werewolf shook her head, as though she were trying to shake the thoughts away. She was getting off track, and she wasn't willing to fill herself up with a nuance of regrets for what had happened. Now wasn't the time. Later, she'd find the time to do so, but now was the time to continue researching and then, plan a preemptive strike.

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"Christ all-fucking-mighty."

She had spent the better part of two hours hunting through every avenue of approach, getting as much information on the exit and entryways, trajectories to attack, defend, everything. What she got a look at, combining her research with Nightmare's, was not what she was expecting.

The number of people that came and went were more than just two. They looked like vagabonds off the streets, drafted in for whatever madness they were planning out.

How in the hell did these bastards manage to rope in these punks?

And more importantly, how many of them were armed, what were their rotation patterns, did they have a watch set up if they did, did they have a skeleton crew that could be exploited?

So much more came together as well. The underground racing circuit was alive with activity on the biker's half of things as well. She had had all the signs in front of her, yet she had been blind to them all. So had the Storm Hawks, apparently. This Dark Ace had been working his way through the underground, discreetly at first, but with growing clarity and infamy. Not under his known moniker, of course, but under a different one but the face was the same. How they missed this, she wasn't sure, but then again, these kids weren't exactly detectives. And they hadn't completely immersed themselves in this modern day mainstream culture of gadgets and technology.

If he's been here for a decent amount of time like these kids, then he's built up enough of a reputation and won enough revenue from the races to fund for weapons and defense systems. Maybe no military grade, no, but decent enough. Did they have tripwires for motion sensors? Cameras? Bugs to listen in for unwelcome guests? She wouldn't doubt they had something hidden in the surrounding area while keeping to the outwardly rundown, decrepit appearance. It would lull anyone stupid enough to assume they had an easy job into a false sense of security.

Unless of course, they really were that stupid, and hadn't set up anything. Amateurs always made the mistake of focusing on weapons and not enough communications.

She dove into everything. She started getting feedback from her other contacts, other hackers she hadn't talked to in years, not since before her induction into the military. And yet they flooded her email, blew up her phone, everything. It was almost touching to catch up, if even briefly. She was well into midmorning hours when she finally stopped at a knock at her door. Kosmo snorted from his sleep, woofing warningly at the door. The cats remained where they were, snoozing. Lupin lifted her head, blinking owlishly, before she slowly filtered in that someone was at the door and was waiting for her to answer them back.

"Yeah?"

"It's, ah, Junko. Just coming to check up on you, since your car was still here. I figured you were too. Um. Do you want any breakfast, or—"

"No. I'm good. Thanks."

Just a little more. Just a little more. I need just…a little…more.

She heard footsteps receding at last, and could practically picture the big guy sulking in a downtrodden manner. There was a brief moment where she wanted to get up and call him back. She wanted to reel back time, undo what was said, perhaps avoid the whole uncomfortable experience in which she had so callously revealed unpleasant ideas she's entertained to herself, ideas she's had on her mind far longer than she'd like to admit. But then that small ray of hope was ruthlessly squashed, stomped, swept up, and thrown into a dark corner to fester and rot away.

No. She had a job to do. She kept telling herself that. She didn't have time to feel bad for hurting a few kids' feelings. If they couldn't handle the truth, then they should have chosen a less lofty job…whatever it really was. She'd only gleaned vague ideas from it all. And now she had to get back to her search.

Another few hours had her staring endlessly at the computer screen, broken only when she had to get up to let Kosmo go out and do his business and to stretch her own legs. She saw barely hide or hair of the others, which was just fine. She was used to solitude, and perhaps, she reflected that it was a very sad, painful truth, but it was a truth, along with that solitude, that she was used to bearing. What was one more sliver of pain to add onto the pile already heaped upon her back, right?

After several more phone calls, short chats in web forums, and many an email later, she had a good idea of what she was looking at. Old warehouse plans had been dredged up from god knows where, street avenues from an aerial point of view were provided and avenues of approach were mapped out. She began marking them all over, sketching them quickly onto a piece of paper, since she couldn't print this all out. When she was halfway through, she only then realized that she had missed both work and her classes. She received no calls from either one, and a split moment of heart-stopping panic was quelled when she remembered that no, no. She hadn't missed anything. She had already sent in emails or called in to take a few days off. Pawning off the loss of her home was a good excuse to miss a few days from either responsibility.

When she had completed all her reconnaissance, felt satisfied with her intelligence, and was ready to put her plan into the works, she pushed everything to the side. She got up, disturbing the pile of fur that had built up around her. The rattle of various pet tags made her ears flick back in their direction, but her sole focus was now on a foot locker that she had recovered from her burnt garage. It was one of the first things she had taken from the scene, one of the few things that hadn't burned away in the blaze.

Ripping the lock off, she flung the top open and she let out a breath of relief. All her weapons were safe. Slowly, over the years, she had garnered a collection of various bits and baubles here and there, but among her favored long-distance weaponry laid on top of them all.

She reached in and ran a hand over a hand-crafted bow inside, the minute carvings still there on the wood arms, just as she remembered them. The quiver of arrows lay just beneath, leather braids laced through the main compartment in a decorative fashion. The fletching of the arrows were still crisp and fresh, and the arrowheads were tightly attached, ready for firing.

She picked up the bow, reveling in the feel of the handle in her hands again. Hunting in North Carolina had been a welcome relief every hunting season, but ever since she'd been back in southern California, she hadn't had the time to look into a hunting license for the state, nor actually getting out there and doing so on her own terms and not the full moon's. The string had been untied, so she strung it back up and plucked at it experimentally at first, then drew it back in a mock firing position. All the way to her cheek, she could hear the faint strain of the wood and string as they pulled together, a quiet serenade to her ears. Slowly, she brought it back down, giving it relief.

Her pets watched as she raced to and fro after, packing things into a bag, strapped on sheaths for her knives, holstered a pistol from her locker, shouldered her quiver and bow. She felt more complete with the entire get up, familiar weights hanging off her frame that felt more a part of her, like her tool belt did when she worked on her car.

Lupin reveled in the weight, adjusting as needed. When she was satisfied, she grabbed all her paperwork and headed out. Kosmo trotted after her, while the cats remained where they were, darting about the room after one another in a playful game. She made for the bridge, and despite the slight drag her equipment gave on her person, each step felt lighter than the last. She was going to raise hell and woe to anyone who got in her way. When she stepped through the door to the bridge, all the Storm Hawks were there, just as they were the last time she had found them, but she didn't bother tiptoeing her way inside like the previous entry.

They noticed her off the bat, and they drank in the sight of out of surprise, speechless at first.

"Um…nice…getup. You planning on going to the country for a few weeks to do some big game hunting with all that?" Finn said, breaking out of his staring trance. Lupin inclined her head toward him, her lips slowly perking into a crooked grin. This did little to ease their worries, but she could see, one by one, their interest was perked.

"You might wanna put on your war paint. We found the sonuvabitches."

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Note: Lupin will play by the rules, to a certain extent. As long as you do, at least. As soon as someone cuts ties to that, she drops it herself, and it becomes a no-holds bar beat down, and she won't hesitate to use dirty tactics. If that means dredging up old contacts and worming about in government and private systems to track down someone, then so be it. She knows people, and will call them up on the drop of a dime to complete her goals.

TL;DR—don't fuck with a werewolf who has underground resources, because she gon' fuck you up worse. :P Actually, don't mess with any werewolf. They'll fuck you up regardless. XD