Crash %ace: A Sha&zo Seer’s Kale So much for romance. She’s as CraTy as the rest of these Rat People. Gregor jumps down into the hole; the tunnel beneath it is lit by a single glow stick. The sacks ofnitrates are piled ten feet high. In the dim orange illumination, Gregor can make out a big metal wall, i I some windaus, and four words: KING COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT. Ariel jumps up into the driver’s seat, turn on the headlights of the school bus, and s h s Gregor his new home. “Brillumt, isn’tit? Buryingawholeschool bus m the back yard. The fihationsystemis over there. Anddon‘t go too near the Emergency Exit! It’s a spirit-world thmg; you wouldn’t understand. We got the ldea watching Kmesh on TV. Think of it: a m ’ h mnds of ammunition storedmabwriedschoolbus! They’d takesomeof thecMrenhthere for Bible study, too! I’m a Seer, myself, so I like the Idea.” “Are you gonna tell me m e of those werewolf stories now?” Gregorasks. Heniesnottolooktoohardatthe~f~canrofporkand beans stored behind the driver’s seat. “Youdm’t want to listen to those werewolfstories. They’re all lies. We all started out as part of the same family, so I guess we have a few id.eas in c o m m , but that endedfive thousand years ago.. . .” Gregor winces. Every Ratkin seem to have his own delusions about the end of the world. Resigning himself, Gregor sits down next tothePorkBBeans,getsreadytosnagacanwhennocmeislooking. Picking out the bits of meat will take a while though; any m e bad meat, and his vegetarian system is gonnu make him puke. t Chapter Two: Infesting the World “Are you about to tell me the reason you’re buried in this school “Damnstraight. See, it’s like this...” Hereyesstarttogoglassy bus with all these sacks of fertilizer and boxes of ammunition?” with religious fervor.. . Mystic Skit “Let me set the record straight. I’m sure Julia told you a lot of New Age nonsense, but she and I don’t agree. We both know the Garou terrorized the other Changing Breeds during the War of Rage and established themselves as the lords of the Earth. For five millennia, we’ve watched and waited from our breeding grounds in the spirit world, so naturally, our perspective is a little different. Over last few millennia, we’ve preserved our sacred stories far away from the madness of Earth. The Wolves, however, have been living in this insane little world for thousands of years, and as their stories have been retold again and again, the Lie has been reinforced over and over. “Ask the Wolves, and they’ll tell you over and over the story of how the world fell apart. In the beginning, there were three primal forces in Gaia’s world: the Wyrm, the Weaver and the Wyld. The Weaver made all the structure of the world, creating the trees and rivers and mountains. The Wyld breathed life into the world, allowing the Weaver’s creations to thrive. And to prevent the world from growing too quickly, the Wyrm snipped at the threads of creation that prospered more than they should. I agree with that part. “Somewhere along the way, the Weaver grew too ambitious, and trapped the Wyrm in her threads. The Mad Weaver went insane, trying to bind all of creation in her web, and the Wyrm, in its fury, lashed out at everything. This also has some truth to it. There’s one part I still wonder about: What exactly caused the Weaver to go insane? For every event that happens in the spirit world, there’s a corresponding event in the mundane world, the physical world, right? If the Weaver really did go insane and try to control everything, no doubt there was something similar going on in this world. “You can see where I’m going with this, right? The world wasn’t thrown out of balance at the dawn of time, like some folks’ll tell you. The Weaver went insane around the same time that humans tried to make the world their own. After the Concord, it’s the humans who swarmed across the planet, trying to bind up all the natural places of the world within the Weaver’s lifeless webs. I don’t blame the Mad Weaver, ‘cause she’s just a reflection of human civilization. That same civilization the Garou have been protecting for thousands of years. “The Wolves will tell you that the Wyrm became corrupt, and that all the suffering in the world is the result of its tendrils of corruption. Where dark emotions surge, the minions of the Wyrm exploit and victimize. Just like in the Impergium, when they thoroughly infected the Garou. The War of Rage was instigated by the Garou, but curiously enough, they don’t like to remember that. They won’t take responsibility for it, and they sure as hell aren’t trying to make up for what they did. “Instead,mostGaroulookatallthesufferingintheworld,and they have the same response: they blame the Wyrm. The Wyrm has become a scapegoat for everything the humans and the Garou have done, for all of their failures. Even though they thlnk the Apocalypse is a foregone conclusion, they’re willing to die one by one fighting the inevitable. And along the way, they fervently protect the cause of the whole damn problem: the humans.” Mother wit Ariel starts rocking back and forth right about then, shaking withreligious fervor. She’s pactically gadngojfinto another dimension, like that “spirit world” Joe talksabout. Gregorstealthilycracks open another Beenie Weenie can behind his back, dips his fingers in the tomato sauce. The pork and sausage don‘t bother him as much as they once did; in fact, he’s getting to enjoy the taste. The “Emergency Exit” is wide open at the back of the bus. The front of the bus is lit up with hedights, but he could easily hide in the back. Gregor watches Ariel closely, waiting fur his chance to bolt.. . . 0 . . “I’ll put this in simpler terms: Do you know what happens if rats breed more children than their environment will support? They know that we know that when a colony is too big, they can either all die slowly of starvation and disease, or a few of us can die quickly. It’s only logical for us to turn against each other until the balance is restored. Mothers eat their weakest children, and the weakest of the swarm is destroyed for the benefit of all. “Now, consider this: There are too many humans on this planet for the Earth to support. They can all suffer slowly, through disease and starvation, or the weakest should be killed. The Weaver’s webs should be severed. Every human that dies, before that balance is restored, heals Mother’s world. Of course, not all of my brothers and sisters will agree with me. Some say we’ve got to ‘sever the Webs that drove the Wyrm insane.’
Ratkin · Werewolf