CoR Ragenard's Gonna Ragenard

[Dashmiel]

Location

The Rusty Nail, Lupaix

---

The early evening wind rustled through Ragenard’s hair as he revved his Perrault to full throttle, even though the upcoming traffic light had already been yellow by the time he’d rounded the corner a quarter mile back. The day had been a mixed bag. First his “conversation” with Rhetta—nothing like mixing commiseration and a bruised spleen to mix a bag up—dealing with the dopey ass piss kid that he still wasn’t sure if he regretted simply cutting loose. Minus the moderate bruising to cover the costs he’d made him incur with Thorje when Ragenard personally paid for the damages of course. Marc and him went way back, and had always honored the deals between each other, regardless of the sides they’d each stood for.



Then the delay in getting a hold of Cathal’s intermediary, the final nail in the coffin of his impatience. Something was going on in Iveria too, and they were being kept in the dark. Ragenard couldn’t afford to have the Bloodstones fall from the Verdant Mantle’s grace.



They were going to need those guns. He could feel Vargeras’ itch for blood in the air. Already the punk ass hume gangs were starting to try their luck. They could play whack-a-mole all they wanted there, but it was too late. The signal to the real players was already out; come try your luck, the Kings and Queens of Lupaix were busy licking themselves whole.

Not that he would let a challenge go, however. That was an altogether grimmer message. There were hungry wolves and more out there.

The loud susurrus of the air passing over his ears almost managed to drown out the sounds of loud honking and screeching metal as several vehicles smashed on the brakes to avoid a pile-up when Ragenard absentmindedly plunged through the busy intersection. It was only his wrenching his bike around forcefully—an action effective only thanks to his inhuman weight and preternatural strength—that he was able to just barely coax the 2nd law of motion to aid in keeping his bike from ending mangled and having to pay for yet another cut.



Probably earn a few warrants and karmic debt for vehicular manslaughter too. Mac Lir’s fucking gonads what kind of fucking asshole am I turning into, Ragenard thought. He didn’t even remember seeing the traffic light and while in the past this would have left him aghast with himself—never an innocent, not when he could take the corporeal consequences of any macabre self-justifications—this time he found it hard to even summon the desire to care he’d almost done just that to half a dozen.



He revved his Perrault back up to max throttle. The wind’s loud caress also blanked out the distant laughter. Pushing his bike to its limit, he made it from the Railyard to the Rusty Nail’s parking lot in record time. Ragenard didn’t spare a look at the many cracks in the pavement, amidst which wayward weeds grew wildly. The same went for the cracked façade of one of the exterior walls of the Rusty Nail itself, which he still remembered making despite the many coats of cheap paint—and as many cheap decades—which separated him and his younger outburst.



He hoped he would be more controlled than he was back then. He needed to make an example of an unknown loudmouth in there, not a spectacle of himself in the eyes of the streets. Ragenard bore down upon himself mentally, trying to envision a locking safe and choosing to mistake the feeling of his tightening neck and upper shoulder muscles as progress.



Ragenard forcefully made his way through the door before the damned laughter could return. Even the dim lighting brought a minor instant discomfort to his uncharacteristically sensitive vision lately. He’d swear he was spending half his time squinting nowadays. The affectation served him well given his purpose however.



The sight of a—presumably—angry Ragenard walking in the door, squinting through the clientele brought an instant hush to the typically raucous bar. You could hear a pin drop, but under the flow of familiar adrenaline and known expectations, all Ragenard heard was blessed silence.


“I would like to speak to the manager regarding a challenge an employee made to myself,” Ragenard called out loudly but slowly, enunciating each word carefully. He didn’t roar; everyone there would expect that, and no one feared the expected.


Unconcerned for what may come his way, Ragenard turned his back to the room before his answer came and flipped the sign on the door to ‘closed’. His Colors flashed clear to the room and the text on the bottom rocker was unmistakable; First Amongst Wolves. Then he had the further gall to gesture for keys, but his easy posture spoke of the lack of doubt he had that his request would be honored.

 

[Tiko]

Marcellus was midway through pouring a shot of whiskey for a patron when Ragenard entered. The abrupt shift in the atmosphere was more than enough to shake even him out of his drudgery-induced depression. He recognized Ragenard immediately, and the mood spoke poorly of whoever had brought his ire down upon them. Marcellus' face turned to one of confusion though when it was himself that Ragenard called out for. He didn't have employees-

The realization hit him as he brought a hand up to his forehead to rub at his brows as if to brace for the coming headache.

"Stupid fucking idiot," he muttered. "He's in the back."

He wouldn't presume to expect Ragenard to go find him though. He instead downed the shot of whiskey he had been pouring for a patron and let out a holler of his own.

"Grisham! Get out here!"

He retrieved a ring of keys from his pocket as he made for the front door. He paused only briefly as he passed Ragenard.

"Try not to kill him, eh?" Marcellus asked quietly enough to not be overhead. "He's helpful, even if he is an idiot."

He continued on and locked the doors. No one would be in or out, until Ragenard said otherwise.

 

[Hollow glade]

If there had been any windows he fit through in the back, Grisham would've never come out. They wouldn't have seen him again in that part of town, if he could help it. But there weren't, and the sudden silence was deafening. An eerie calm before what he was sure was going to be a force of nature, since the moment he heard that fucking voice.

"I would like to speak to the manager regarding a challenge an employee made to myself" NO! He hadn't challenged shit, he hadn't challenged anybody. It wasn't his fault he needed to go ask someone to keep pissers off of Marc's property!, it kind of was his fault that he had been a rude asshole when he asked, but this?. The tone on that guy, that man sounded like he didn't just own the place, he might own the whole damn neighborhood. Or he worked for someone who did. Maybe he was just the stereotypical brute. Which didn't help Grisham's fear in the slightest. but Marc called him, and just like the good dog he was playing at, he'd have to go.

"Be right there boss!" He said, channeling any inner... confidence he found, so his voice at least didn't tremble. It didn't help how sheepish he looked when he came out of the back though, carrying absolutely zero boxes of whatever he had gone looking for in the first place. If he remembered what it was, he forgot about it completely when he saw the man. Holy shit, holy shit. He was fucked, completely and throughly fucked. Seriously? what had he barked at a mafia boss's son too hard?. His eyes were wide with fear, and he threw a pleading look at Marcellus. Surely he could say something?, anything??. Or maybe not, maybe he just didn't care at all. He didn't know how he was supposed to tell, when the guy's range of emotional expression fell somewhere between a rock and a plastic ficus.

"Uh, can I... help you?" He said, finally, without an ounce of confidence though. He gulped, fearing the response. Maybe this had been as good as it could get for Grisham Raven.

 

[Dashmiel]

Given the crowd of onlookers, Ragenard’s decision was already sealed the moment he walked in. It didn’t mean that he was out to cause Marc any consternation, however. He carefully angled his body away from the crowd while he waited for this unfortunate “Grisham” to come out from the back and coached his voice barely above a whisper towards Marcellus’ ear as the other man moved by Ragenard to lock the door.

“Ain’t all idiots,” he replied with a good-natured smirk now that he could momentarily hide the lack of actual seething rage that was the norm he projected. “Rest easy, old cuss. Just a manners lesson," he reassured before moving towards the clear spot that was forming as all the patrons began to crowd their way towards the walls and edges of the room.

An undercurrent of excited chattering had begun to rise upon the crowd's realization that Ragenard wasn't there for any of them. It quieted once more upon the massive werewolf's movement. Those amongst the crowd with guiltier consciences where the Guiscard man was concerned rushed faster than others to press against the back layers of dim lighting, away from his gaze, bringing a smile to the corner of his lips.

Ragenard cracked the muscles of his prodigiously thick neck and rolled his shoulders as Grisham made his way out from the back. Ragenard didn’t know the man enough to parse his scent profile, but it didn’t take a genius to understand the rapidly shifting nature of it currently meant the unfortunate fuck likely wished he’d not opened his mouth to Bastien in the first place.

Ragenard actually felt bad for the guy, as he gave him a quick look over as he approached. It was clear he did not expect this turn of events when he'd hailed Bastien. Ragenard doubted he even the lay of the streets, let alone understand what he invited when he didn't take care what he publicly voiced to and about the pack.

He watched the smaller man approach intently. It had been more than seventy years since Ragenard’s first beatdown for running his mouth, delivered by one of his father’s enforcers. He remembered his bullshit sauntering out into the circle made by the attending pack members. How Jean-Pierre casually stood in what appeared to be an unconcerned stance while Ragenard broadcast how little he knew with his very exuberant hopping.

He’d gotten trounced and started the path of his own learning into a fighter's proper bearing.

While the other man’s sight-line barely cleared Ragenard’s nipples, Ragenard’s experienced gaze was able to note the reasonably firm muscles that couldn’t be wholly concealed by his clothes, and the way his bearing betrayed that this ‘Grisham’ had undergone some basic training in an organized manner, at least once upon a time.

It was evident in the way his arms never swung so far out as to impede blocking his vitals and the way his steps seemed more measured than his face muscles appeared to tell Ragenard to expect. There’s a story to you, loudmouth, isn’t there?, Ragenard thought to himself as he proceeded to crack his knuckles. He wondered why a man that young had fallen into Marc’s dead-end orbit. Maybe this visit would be more educational and useful than Ragenard first expected.

It depended on how their firsts learned to greet one another.

Ragenard shook his head before letting out a viciously cruel mocking laugh. It was clearly fabricated; a dare unto itself.

“That’s what I’m here to find out, little man,” Ragenard said. “I heard you were going to teach me how to run my territory?” he asked, his thumb jerking to tap against the front left-most rocker patch on the front of his cut; it also bore his name and the text ‘First Amongst Wolves’.

Ragenard privately felt it made him seem like he was likely to forget who he was, but he wore the extraneous necessities of his station without complaint; his enemies deserved to know who was slowly walking over to eviscerate them, and as First it was his job to make sure to always draw the fire.

Without warning, He burst through the room and cleared the bar to stand in the space behind with a flash of speed that would dizzy a human eye and (hopefully) impressed upon Grisham how fucked he was if he couldn’t match the feat. Grisham would have had less than two heartbeats to catch Ragenard’s fast run and powerful leap across half the room.

“Something about expectations and I presume how you can fulfill them better?” he asked with a mocking smile as he reached for what passed for Marc’s top shelf and pulled a brown bottle down. He ripped the neck of the bottle clean off and pressed it right to his lips to drink deeply of the Lutetian whiskey, broken glass and all.

Then he just stood there smiling, waiting for Grisham’s answer and watching him for both signs of his own movement and to see if the display sunk in the other’s eyes yet.

 

[Hollow glade]

Oh, this was a spectacle wasn't it? Or some sort of execution with airs of grandeur?. He wasn't going to do much, then. He had fucked up, the butcher or Death or whatever this man wanted to be so badly, had come for him. On instinct he prepared to jump back. He tended up and got on a little stance before he did anything else, watching him and only him. He ignored the clients. He did dare look at his face, what was one more challenge after all?.

"I think the answer to both questions is no. Jus' wanted you to stop jackals from coming to piss in here or pour cement in the pipes..." He said, in a normal time of voice the rest of the bar would have struggled to hear. But this guy probably hadn't. He couldn't help but feel betrayed by his boss, which was stupid!. He hadn't even offered him a contract or paid him yet, maybe he wasn't even his boss. Grisham was just an idiotic volunteer with too much free time.

He made the effort to break his little battle stance, and stepped forward towards the bar.

"I'm pretty sure you had your mind made up about what you were going to do with me before you even came in here. And I've got no way out, Sir. So I'm sincerely sorry for yapping at your... Packmate, I shouldn't have, won't do it again." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. He just looked so tired. "But can we get on with this? Just do whatever you came here to do. I'll take it, or I... Eh. I'll take it. Period." He looked away, there was no point in seeing the hit coming. He might actually move away if he did. Or throw his arms up. The entire time he wasn't loud, he wasn't acting. He was just fearful, guilty, he resented himself and Marcellus as well.

 

[Dashmiel]

It wasn’t often that Ragenard had a reverie of a life that didn’t involve…well, all that his life had involved for the past 70 years of his “adulthood” since turning 14 and dropping out of school to transport and sling his first case of bullpups.

I think the answer to both questions is no. Jus' wanted you to stop jackals from coming to piss in here or pour cement in the pipes... Ragenard heard him whisper. It wasn’t quite a whimper, but it wasn’t far in Ragenard’s estimation.

Did he look as scared during that first border crossing as he followed the script he was given—he only found out later that the Iverian customs agent was so deep in Cathal’s pocket they were cousins-in-law—standing there unarmed while they held him and searched his bike? He didn’t think so, but he’d had a lot of time and chances to turn into the thing he’d become. Still, this ‘Grisham’ at least had the presence of mind to whisper.

Ragenard took another long swig of the bottle to disguise his mild surprise when the loudmouth demonstrated some balls and actually approached closer.

"I'm pretty sure you had your mind made up about what you were going to do with me before you even came in here. And I've got no way out, Sir. So I'm sincerely sorry for yapping at your... Packmate, I shouldn't have, won't do it again."

Ragenard laughed and drained the bottle before smashing it upon the floor. He was upon Grisham in an instant, leaning in to catch the last of what the other man had to say for himself.

“You’re kind of an idiot, but I’ll give you props. Take a lesson, out here it’s not just what you say but how, who, and when you say it, got it?” Ragenard asked, before punctuating his question with a measured but deep punch into Grisham’s gut, making the shorter man briefly double over.

He swiftly followed with one, two, three strikes across the other man’s face, and a kick that sent him crashing into the bar, cracking the cheap stained pine making up the bar’s façade.

Ragenard could have sent him clear through the bar, but he was trying to go for a measured approach. As Grisham slowly got up and wiped bloody spittle from his face before resuming what passed for “squaring up,” however, Ragenard wondered if he shouldn’t step it up a notch.

He cast his senses more carefully, trying to listen to the man’s heart, veins, blood rushing. Smell not just his sweat, but the sub-scents that indicated the chemical compounds Ragenard couldn’t name but long experience had given him a guide to decode. He looked deep into the other’s eyes, watching them dilate and tremble.

The other man had no breath, Ragenard’s nose told him, but this was simply a lack of scent, like the smell of spring water taken out of the spring and not a more literal lack of breath. Ragenard knew how to spot those a lot faster than other wolves. But the bundle of mutations that he was knew to recognize another shifter given all signs.

He smiled and raised an eyebrow at Marc before he kicked it up a further notch.

The sound of mild bone fractures screeched from Ragenard’s ankles as he rushed to Grisham’s side while the other was still reeling and regaining his balance. “If you get tired of cleaning drunken piss and shit, tell one of mine that you’re ready for a new life,” Ragenard whispered as he leaned in close to Grisham’s ear and patted him good-naturedly on the back.

Ragenard then proceeded to unleash a meticulous beatdown at preternatural speed upon the shorter man, always there with a second strike almost as soon as Grisham felt the first one. Always precisely from the opposite direction of the first, as if Grisham was a bell that had to be kept ringing but positioned exactly in the middle of the steeple.

After a minute—a long minute given how fast Ragenard could hit—Ragenard held a teetering and purple-eyed Grisham at arm’s length. “You disrespected the Bloodstones which means you disrespected me,” Ragenard called out in a booming voice for all to hear. “But tonight you accepted the consequences of your challenge the Lupaix way,” he added before publicly hugging Grisham.

“Me and mine have no more quarrel with you,” Ragenard continued as he dragged Grisham behind the bar and pulled a random bottle to place in his hand. “Fuck off though,” he finished with a laugh that was nervously picked up by the bar patrons as Ragenard pushed Grisham on towards the back from whence he’d come. The atmosphere didn’t ease up; the doors were still locked.

“As for the rest of you fine bunch of assholes and cunts,” Ragenard roared. “Do I have any Iron Jackals in the house tonight? Anyone with the same balls as good Grisham to put their challenge to my face?” Ragenard pantomimed and gesticulated theatrically, like a circus ringleader working the ticket booth. He held his hand to his ear for a moment as if straining to hear the back of the room.

“Didn’t fucking think so. But I know there’s at least one of you cockroaches in the room tonight, so make sure you carry the news home; Lupaix is Bloodstones, and we see you. Keep it up and we’ll do some pest control. Ask the Scions what that means.”

Ragenard turned his back to the crowd and gestured for Marc to unlock the door and come over. “The Bloodstones still make good on their word, Marcellus,” Ragenard said seriously. He was still being theatric, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t being honest. The Bloodstone First reached into one of the pockets of his cut and withdrew a thick wad of bills held together by a money clip.

He pulled out more than the damages incurred by the Rusty Nail recently—his included—merited, then made a show of pulling out a bit more. “And two rounds on the house courtesy of me personally, go home drunk and stupid, Lupaix!,” he added before turning his back to them all once more.

He exchanged a few quiet words with Marc, then left the building. The hush within the bar didn’t abate and conversation didn't resume until the sound of Ragenard’s Perrault roared and then faded down the street.

 

[Hollow glade]

The first hit he took, right to the gut, almost made him keel over already. By the end of it, when he stumbled back into the storage room he had initially come out of, he had no idea how many he had taken. Only that his legs failed to hold him up and he ended up crawling to sit up against the nearest wall, bottle in hand of course. This one was his, perhaps the only shitty relief he'd get. He whined quietly, breathing hard and feeling like a chewed up piece of gum someone had spat back out and left in the middle of the road. Only for a truck to run it over, several times. There wasn't a single spot that didn't hurt. The random as fuck hug by the end had almost made him cry, if he wasn't already. Was this, doing this to other people instead, the life that awaited him if he decided to accept that... offer?. Fuck, the words felt surreal, wobbly. They were hammering the insides of his brain repeatedly, bouncing against the walls, still. Nothing made sense, other than that he wanted to get away from the pain. So he opened the bottle, not even looking at what it was. It smelled like alcohol and that was good enough. With shaky arms and shakier hands he brought it to his lips and started drinking.

He drank, swallowing it down slowly at first. It burned. It wouldn't kill him, or maybe it would. Finally. No!, he didn't want that, he stopped for a second and growled at the bottle before he kept going, gulping down the contents of it until it was empty and then staying right where he was, waiting for it to hit him. He already felt like shit anyway. And what was Marcellus going to do about it if he stayed in the storage room curled up in a corner until his regeneration finished stitching him back up?. Fire him?, you needed a fucking contract for that first. Ugh... he curled up more and let the bottle fall, it didn't break. Everything hurt so much, his head was spinning. So he hugged his knees and sobbed quietly. That also hurt. Every movement he made, and every breath he took was another dose of pain. He wanted it to stop, he wanted to puke but he didn't, please, please stop...