Werewolf The Apocalypse: Beast Behind The Glass

War-Maw was too late to react. Too mentally frayed by the rising war beneath the full moon. The same could be said for the rest of his pack. And the many packs littered within the Sept.

The twisted doggish creatures went on the offensive from within.

War-Maw watched six of them pounce on Cat-Eyes from behind. Their maddened eyes expanded as they bit into her limbs, tearing away chunks to be swallowed down their sagging gullets with a fervent intensity.

Another six charged War-Maw, falling from the trees and bursting out of piles of dead leaves like Halloween horrors.

War-Maw leapt into the air, escaping the flanking horde of doggish monsters swallowing his pack.

As he rose towards the sky, he collided with the three massive rotten Dobermans from above.

He hit the center most creature, biting into its rotted face while grabbing the other two by the throats.

The four of them crashed through a maple tree before hitting the cold ground and scattering.

War-Maw exploded to his feet, the canine monstrosities were just getting up on scrawny and broken legs. War-Maw acted quickly, reaching out to manipulate the rich Gnosis in his home territory. With the help of an earth elemental raging beneath his feet, he performed his Red Talon Gift, Quicksand.

The ground rumbled and shifted beneath the creatures blistered and oozing paws. They snarled and tried to charge War-Maw only to sink as the solid cold ground became bubbling hot quicksand.

As the creatures struggled and sank, War-Maw moved as a blur past them, ripping out their throats in a flash before charging the horde rising from his own ranks.

His once unified pack scattered in reaction to the foul-hounds rising from within. It was pure pandemonium shown in the creatures ripping into his kin while others tore apart the enemy using gifts from the spirits and powers from the umbra.

War-Maw was among them in a flash of adrenaline and Gaian fueled emergency.

Four more of the dog monsters were on Cat-Eyes.

War-Maw kicked them off her. The creatures broke like wooden toys wrapped in rotten pelts as they collided with trees and smashed into bushes.

As soon as she got to her feet, she leapt up into a tree and darted back to the ground, pouncing on a massive husky looking creature with so much intensity it simply exploded.

In the distance, Bloodfang fought off four surrounding foul-hounds. Wolves of war.

As the first charged, she caught it by the throat and swung it at the next two. Another came from behind. She caught it with her other hand without looking. As the two on the ground recovered, she smashed the dogs in each hand together until their heads were nothing more than giblets and dark bone.

She didn't see the new horde coming from behind.

War-Maw called to the earth elementals once more as he manipulated the Gnosis around him to activate his Philodoxian Gift, Earth Wall.

He slapped his hands into the ground. Immediately the ground stiffened and rose like a snake slithered beneath it all the way to Bloodfang's location.

As the creatures moved to attack her from behind, a wall of stone, dirt and vines rose up and shielded her from their swarming attack.

At the same time, Cat-Eyes protected him from distant members closing in.

She raged as she did. Members of their pack were dying. They were being eaten alive by the foul doggish monsters.

War-Maw watched Garou he played with and raised lose arms and disappear beneath swarms of rot and filth.

"Wind-claw!….. Jumper— Falcon-Eater….. Moon-Speaker!" His family was dying.

Bloodfang ran off to help another section of the fractured pack, dodging bombs and sinking beneath gun fire with ease.

War-Maw turned to Cat-Eyes as she ripped one of the hound creatures in half.

It's blood pooled on the ground at their feet.

"I need to get to the source. The tainted human bastards… if this is their trump card it's not enough." War-Maw thought.

Immediately after, he crouched beside the reflective blood and prepared to step sideways into The Umbra.

It was a gift all Garou—and most Changing Breeds, were capable of. They were spiritual beings with connections to the spiritual world. And after their first change, it became as easy as breathing. All they needed was a natural reflective surface and the ability to pass The Gauntlet. A barrier between the Tellurian and the Umbra.

On Caern grounds, it was easy.

War-Maw prepared to step into the reflective blood. To travel the mirroring spirit world so he could emerged unseen behind the human filth and show them Gaia's rage. A teleportation of sorts.

But as he tried, he failed. A realization hit him that he should've known.

"They're not natural…."

At the same time, the sky screamed. Foul fumes darkened the clouds and caused them to bubble and spit frothy pink wyrmish lightning bolts that could only be felt in The Umbra.

The cause of it, was something he hadn't seen in a long time.

Aircraft.

His human experience told him the specifics by the sound of the engine and smell of the body alone.

It was a bomber jet. A B-75 Ash-Spitter. A stealth-bomber jet used in urban warfare. Known for its uncanny maneuverability and poisonous smoke screen deployments.

It roared as it flew overhead. A high speed mass in a shell of black polymetal and carbonite.

War-Maw was already moving when he heard the whistle as the bomb fell from the sky. Already taking note of his territorial grounds thanks to his Red Talon Gift, Sense Territory.

The small pond ahead. The men yelling commends out west.

His mind worked.

Old instincts took over and he yelled, "INCOMING!!!" As if he was back on the old battlefield.

He jumped back and forth between trees, swinging and flipping off the branches to rise higher until he was leaping out of the forest canopy and slamming into the massive descending warhead.

His weight and bulk was enough to knock the warhead off track.

It was enough to send them both falling into the pond.

Only they didn't enter the pond.

With the natural reflective surface, rich Gnosis flowing land, and War-Maw's skill as a Garou.

They stepped into the umbra.

War-Maw tackled an explosive deployed by a bomber jet out of the sky, and with it, he fell into the umbra.

It looked like he hit the water without making a single splash.

In a chaotic blur of a transforming world, disturbed spirits and howling winds, War-Maw fell through the umbra. He couldnt remain. He didn't plan to.

As he stepped out of the Umbra, he swiftly reappeared west from his last point. Still falling. Only now, he was right on top of six heavy duty hummers with mounted guns and a whole lot of wyrm tainted operatives.

As he descended with the bomb, he snarled.

"For Gaia!!"