The switch was cleaner now. No nausea, no aftertaste—just the faint tingle behind Ethan's left eye where the Panel's ribbon sat under skin. He surfaced into night.
Pine and brine hit first: a coastline smell—salt threaded with undergrowth. Moonlight cut the trees into hard edges. The world felt older here, tuned by cycles: lunar curves, mating calls, the small, territorial mathematics of wolf packs. Alpha Sense prickled along his skull like a distant static—vectors of motion, clumped and patient, moving in slow conversation.
The Panel announced itself without ceremony.
---
PANEL — NODE ENTRY: TEEN WOLF
Mission: Field Stabilization — "High Moon Drift" (Tier B)
Objectives: Investigate sudden surge of uncontrolled shifts; locate anchor (possible relic); stabilize local pack social order.
Time Limit: 72 hours (recommended window)
Reward: Base 600 PP (×10 via Talent) + Trait Option (Lunar Steadfast fragment)
Risk: Moderate — supernatural signatures and local conflict.
Recommendations: Use Alpha Sense II; avoid overt Full Shift in public. Taming Space legalities: sentient consent required.
---
Ethan let the HUD close. He had 37,130 PP now. Numbers were only a background hum—useful, but not the reason he came. He stepped off the wet flagstone and into the pines, boots whispering. Alpha Sense stretched outward: dozens of small arcs—runners, two-mile trails, a pack's perimeter—but then a different line: a slow, heavy curve pulsing like a heartbeat and carrying something wrong. The vectors jittered as if a compass needle had been nudged.
A line of cottages came into view, smoke coiling from chimneys. A single streetlamp hummed. People moved like dark commas. At the tavern's door a cluster of teens huddled, their shoulders doubled against the cold—too many of them looking up at the moon like it told secrets.
Ethan passed without pausing. Packs required reading; he didn't want to start with questions no one had asked.
He found the mouth of the drift at the edge of town: an old quarry turned lake, water black and slate under the moon. The pack's scent filed across the surface in bands—alpha, beta, omega—the social geometry written in reek and fur. But the bands were smeared. Alpha Sense tweaked, delivering a cold line of information: someone or something was forcing shifts without social legitimacy.
He crouched on the stones. The Panel nudged an overlay.
---
PANEL TIP: Observe for one full moon arc; if forced shifts continue, locate anchor (possible human-made totem). Taming Space may temporarily pacify non-sentient constructs. Sentient binds still require consent. Recommended approach: reconnaissance → targeted empathy → offer consent-based stabilization.
---
"Someone's pushing the moon," Ethan muttered to himself—an awkward sentence that still captured the feel: outside pressure pushing packs into unnatural change. That could fracture social order fast. Forced alphas were the worst—an artificial bite left a deeper wound than nature intended.
He tested his edges: no Full Shift yet. Alpha Sense II hummed sharp and generous; Lunar Steadfast, if earned, would ease regenerative spikes, but he didn't have it. Still, his Full Shift (Lycan) sat in reserve. For now, he would be a translator between vectors and flesh.
Movement slid through the trees: three figures, near-synchronous—two human, one wolf in mid-shape—arriving from the ridge. A familiar pattern: half-transformed youth, adrenaline-screaming. Ethan didn't flinch. He stepped out with hands open, palms visible, an invitation to words.
"Easy," he said, low. His voice carried across the stones without alarm. Alpha Sense painted them: leader, subordinate, wild-shifted—fear braided with aggression.
The largest, a broad-shouldered kid with eyes too bright in moonlight, snarled and snapped a half-word. "Who are you—?"
"Traveler," Ethan said. "Looking for the reason your nights are rough."
The kid spat. The wolf coiled at his side, muscles ready. A second kid shifted further back—obvious beta discomfort—while a third, smaller figure peered from the trees: a curved, thin face, wary and quick.
Ethan kept his breath even. "You don't need another fight. If someone is forcing bites or pushing the moon's pull, the pack fractures. I can help find what's pushing it. No tricks."
Alpha Sense read the exchange: micro-shifts in posture, a vote of uncertainty forming. The broad-shouldered kid—probably temporary alpha—tensed to reject. But the smaller face softened. Consent arrived the slow way packs make decisions: a look, a tilt of the head.
"Okay," the kid said at last. "But if you're a trick—" he pointed a finger like a threat that might be a promise—"we bite."
Ethan smiled in a way that did not pretend to be warm. "Fair." He folded his jacket and followed them.
They moved through deer paths and old service roads to the quarry rim. The moon hung full and heavy; the surface of the lake was not still—drifts moved across it like slow tides. On the far bank a line of standing stones glinted. Someone had been here before—charcoaled rings, old symbols carved into rock. Not local, not natural. The Panel pricked.
He crouched near a scrapped altar: a ring of threaded wire, a glass vial shattered, and a piece of old metal with a sigil he could not immediately parse. Alpha Sense labeled it "anchor": it vibrated with forced shift energy—mechanical resonance grafted to the moon's pull.
"They used tech," Ethan said. "Not pack-born. Someone set a thing to press you."
The alpha's jaw hardened. "Who would do that?"
"Someone who wants control," said the smaller kid—eyes like an animal alert for bargains. "They—took my sister. Said we'd have to play by new rules."
Ethan listened for the name. The kids offered: a ravine, a cabin under the ridge, a trader who moved parts at night. Names were small keys. The Panel suggested reconnaissance and offered an inventory option: Shadow Cloak was still active for a modest cost. Ethan checked his PP mentally and chose stealth over spectacle—he had no time for a public brawl.
He engaged Shadow Cloak from the internal ribbon. The field damped his outline and smeared motion signatures. Alpha Sense dimmed less than before; the cloak wasn't invisibility, but it would buy him the kind of movement that didn't incite a hunt.
They circled the cab, careful, scenting the edges. A light pushed through slats—a human rhythm. Voices. A heavy laugh that tasted like money and hunger. Ethan crouched and read the vectors.
The anchor's hum echoed louder from the cabin's back room. The kids made a plan: diversion, quick recon, split paths. Ethan suggested a simpler route. "Let me see the anchor. If it's machine, I can break the signal. You pull the sister out when it's quiet."
The alpha looked at him like the world had handed him a blade.
"You do it," the kid said.
Ethan slipped to the cabin's back while the others moved like storms. The door was a rotten thing. Inside smelled of oil and wet metal. The anchor sat on a low table: a ring of glass and copper, a pulse of light like a trapped heartbeat. It hummed in an alien pattern—mechanical teeth set to mimic lunar resonance.
He did not touch. Taming Space could fold non-sentient constructs into a quiet pattern; it required no consent. The Panel confirmed: the anchor was a device—non-sentient—eligible. The bind would pacify its resonance and stop forced shifts temporarily. Risk: low. He opened the tether ribbon. A soft loop uncoiled in his mind and reached for pattern.
A last check: if someone nearby detected the sequence, they might notice. He moved faster.
The tether latched. The device stuttered. Its pulse sagged. Alpha Sense showed the quarry's vector lines easing—tighter, settling.
Outside, the scream of a trapped throat broke: the sister freed. Boots pounded. A scuffle blurred into human and wolf tension. Ethan didn't emerge in wild form; he phased through shadow and steadied the anchor's dampening.
In the aftermath, the pack spilled into the night—reunions, curses, a few harsh promises. The alpha looked at Ethan differently now: not an enemy, not exactly kin, but useful, a stranger who unthreaded a string someone had sewn into the moon.
The Panel reported mission progress.
---
PANEL — MISSION UPDATE
Objective: Anchor located and pacified (temporary).
Secondary: Locate operator (ongoing).
Reward Process (provisional): +600 PP ×10 → +6,000 PP pending operator capture.
Trait Offer Unlocked: Lunar Steadfast (minor fragment) — requires mission completion and non-lethal operator resolution.
---
Ethan watched the quarreling kids settle into a muddled, grateful silence. Suzu would enjoy tracking down any remaining stray resonance, Aoi would appreciate the quiet. He pocketed the anchor's damped pattern into Taming Space—no consumption, no theft; just containment until he could collect evidence or hand it to someone with lawful interest. He'd been careful: non-sentient device, no forced will erased, no sentient bind taken without consent.
He turned to the alpha. "Find who brought the tech," he said. "If you want me gone, tell me now. If you want help, I'll stay until the operator is found."
The alpha spat a laugh that could have been a smile. "Help. Stay."
Ethan nodded. The moon moved. Packs reorganized. The Panel threaded a small reward into his ledger. The bigger thing—finding the operator and closing the route—was ahead. For now the town's nights would be easier. The vectors had calmed enough that the kids could sleep without pretending to be other beasts.
He felt the system's appraisal like a gentle ledger entry: good control, low deviation, ethical containment. That was the kind of work he liked—hands-on, small-scale, leaving the world clearer than he found it.
The Panel popped a quiet line before he left the quarry: Operator signature faintly human; likely local tinker. Next step: interrogation, non-lethal. The missions' true arc waited; he had a map, a pack that trusted him a little, and a moon that no longer pulsed like a metronome someone else held.
He stepped back into the trees, Alpha Sense still humming at the edges, and set his pace to the ridge. The night here felt less like a threat and more like a problem with a solution. That suited him well.