| abstract
| - Growing up the daughter of a multi-millionaire weapon manufacturing CEO can be quite boring. Sure, living in a mansion with some of the best security money can buy and being treated to fancy dinners and going to an all girl’s private school has its perks, but for the most part - life... was boring. At least it was at first when she was growing up as a child. Father was never home as he worked 100-hour weeks and traveled cross-country and Internationally on the daily. Briari was left with her high maintenance step-mother who spent most of her day at the country club or at the mall, spending her father’s money without a care in the world. In reality, she had more of a relationship with her butler, chef and gardeners. School was always rough for her as she stood out like a sore thumb amongst the other rich and entitled brats. Where the other girls dressed in their perfect uniforms and nose up in the air attitudes, Briari would alter her dress code much to the principal’s chagrin and spend most of her days off by herself reading away at her graphic novels and drawing costume ideas in her journal. She always had a sense of justice about her. If one of the weaker kids was starting to get picked on, she had no problem getting right in the face of whoever was dishing it out and taking a few black eyes herself. A super hero never backs down from what is right! She loved to tinker and instead of taking home economics like the rest of the proper daughters, she would vouch to take a metal shop class off campus, and even once an auto shop much to her step-mother’s horror when she would come home covered in grease and grime. While her father, Will Wasson, made crucial decisions with his Board of Directors in security multi-billion dollar contracts with the government; he was also a well-known and respected kinfolk for the Glass Walkers. He worked closely with the Sept of Gaia’s Steel in Athens, Georgia and was business partners with the Sept Alpha, Michael Lincoln. Being known for one whom will willingly bank roll the tribe for major funding projects and exert his political stature when necessary, Will Wasson started to entertain the idea of running for government when some of the ranking tribe members began to nudge him in that direction. Fortunately for his sanity, he stuck to his lane and kept with his position at Advanced Minds Technologies (AMT). With both of her parents not being very involved in her life, Briari started to live out her fantasy life between the sheets of comic books, falling in love with such characters as the Green Arrow, Barbara Gordon, Spider-Man and anything else that she could put her hands on. When she was ten, Briari asked for archery lessons and started to compete regionally in the young children’s division. At twelve, she started to take acrobatics. At thirteen, she started taking programming courses as part of her school’s satellite program for children enrolled in the private school. Though he did not get himself too much involved, her father watched her studies from afar, amused, but supportive when the two would get to spend time together. He would watch her work on her katas and shoot her arrows and even found himself impressed now and then when she would show him a program that she coded while in class. Knowing that it would be soon for her first change, Will always had a bit of grief in his heart as he felt that his daughter would soon discover that the real world was full of monsters and she would have to leave her comic book dreams behind. What little he actually knew. Briari’s first change came at the age of fourteen deep in the mansion’s fortified basement as one of the Sept members eased her through it, then soon whisked her off for training. Her step-mother was told that she was accepted to a fancy academy in Savannah and didn’t think twice about the truth. She had a new Mercedes to buy and could not afford the distraction of her little comic book loving nuisance. Her father, proud as could be, filled her in that he was in on the huge secret and that he would always love and support her. It was probably the first and real emotional moment she has had with her father in the last ten years and one that she would cherish. She made sure of it by writing it in her diary: Dear Diary, daddy said he loved me. Nailed it. – Briari. Being a Garou for Briari was just as exciting as one of her comic books and she threw herself into the learning eagerly in hopes to impress her new, real friends and family. Cub life was great for the young Ragabash as she got to learn the ways of her Auspice from a tall lanky Fostern by the name of Stop-And-Go, who was a known phone phreaker and computer genius. He taught Briari how to be sneaky, to keep one ear to the ground and the other to your phone. Impressed with her ability to soak up instruction quickly, he promised her a chance to teach her more about the world of the Web after her rite of passage so that she can have a greater understanding about the flow of data and what it really means. Despite the last couple of years working in martial arts, Briari found out that it does not really transition over into Garou combat and she found herself struggling quite a bit during these new lessons that were far more aggressive and dangerous. Having not been fond of pain, she started to learn how to move quicker and try to get away from the claws and teeth so that the other members of her cub pack can take the brunt of the attack. Everyone needs a good Omega as ‘bait’ and she was more than happy to provide. She had no intention to lead despite her family tree of rich and wealthy businessmen and she was wise enough to recognize she does not belong on the front lines. Her Rite of Passage given to her by Stop-And-Go was not as difficult as she thought it would be. She had to trace the source of heroin flowing into the local high school, uncover who the major players were, and drop the information on Stop-And-Go’s lap, literally, in his lap, in roughly five business days. With the use of social media, sneaking about the rougher neighborhoods, and actually putting the beat on one street punk who thought she was asking too many questions, she was able to locate the dealer in charge, Francisco Rivera, who was then soon arrested for trafficking as well as a number of other misdemeanors. With successful completion of her rite, she was soon named: Follows-The-Money. Packlife came swiftly for Briari as she joined up with a local urban pack that was calling themselves: Amplify. It consisted of a few more Glass Walkers that were brought together under Fox to be used in scouting situations. They were tasked to use both the streets and the web to seek out the enemy and bring the war packs in for combat. Briari’s role in the pack was mostly data gathering on the Internet, utilizing her skill-set she picked up from her days of computer programming in school and further tutoring by Stop And Go as he helped her find the ins and outs of security. Though she will never become a computer ‘hacker’, she at least knows her way about most systems by now and can at least do enough cyber sniffing to pull data if she can get lucky. Roughly three years later, Briari successfully climbed her way into the rank of Fostern after defeating a computer program set to ‘difficult’ in a game of Chess while blind folded and only using vocal commands to control her chess pieces. This showed the kind of mind that young Ragabash had when it came to memorization and strategy. Much to the surprise of most of her Sept and packmates, they howled their congratulations to her. It was the first time someone was able to defeat the program designed by one of the more trickier programmers in the Sept who set up failsafe’s and algorithms to ensure that the program can think at least seven moves ahead of it’s challenger. No one has defeated it without the blindfold. Some whispered that the test gaven to Briari by Laughter-Is-Louder-Than-Fire was meant to quickly fail her as the task was deemed impossible but passed by the Master of Challenge either way. During this time, the newspapers began to speak of a masked vigilante who would cruise through the streets of Savannah during nightfall to disrupt burglaries in progress and thwart would-be rapists. Descriptions of the do-gooder were that of a young woman with black hair, a black eye mask and dark clothing who would swoop down from rooftops and engage in quick moving combat and martial arts. Social media quickly caught fire and began to create fake Twitter and Instagram accounts, showing what very few pictures which were obtained of the ‘hero’ and calling her Night Angel, Shadow Girl, and other ridiculous names that would be found in the pages of a graphic novel. The cops were hardly amused and several news outlets reported that such actions would not be tolerated. Briari had started to grow bored with her role of sitting behind a computer screen and started to train in her off time while sneaking some of her father’s prototype weaponry out for ‘beta testing’ to fight crime. It was no secret that the police force would not prowl certain neighborhoods and she took it upon herself to continue what she started on her passage rite, which was to rid the area of drugs and thugs that frequented streets that once belonged to the city. In her mind, Briari was not only curbing boredom, but also going out and taking a stand in something that she truly believed in, which was justice, for those who could not defend themselves. To her, this went deeper than the war for Gaia, it was about taking care of business as a capable, human being. A few years later, the attacks began to come to the Sept of Gaia’s Steel and that was when everything went to hell. One day the riots came to protest against the government, the next explosions were tearing through the forest as Spirals and monsters of all shapes and sizes came tearing through to find the Sept and Caern, demolishing everything in their path. There was no warning, not a single word whispered of the attack that was to came and the Garou found themselves caught flat-footed. As her pack fought valiantly alongside the Ahrouns of war, they found themselves one by one quickly falling, as they were not built for combat situations but for support. When it became apparent that there was no hope in sight, the last of the gathered made a retreat through the Umbra, but the attacks came as well. Briari found herself flung off the moonbridge that was created to take them to Pittsburgh where the city of bridges was waiting for them. As she fell, she could hear a loud cry rip through the black ink of the Umbra and soon talons grasping her by the shoulders. By now, she was packed under Owl and it was her totem’s last act of kindness to protect her daughter as she carried her through the Umbra and away from the fight. Once she was dropped off in a heap, the totem disappeared once again as the last of Briari’s packmates fell back home, leaving her empty without the voices of her friends in her head. She gained her thoughts and her feet, and then found a pool of water near by that called out to her after making her way through the unfamiliar umbral city. As she glances down at her reflection to watch the spirits dance about in the water, she felt the pull to the other realm and stepped forward, finding herself in Harbor Park. Undedicating her smart phone, she GPS’d herself, suddenly finding herself in St. Claire. Well now... .... awkward. Looks like it’s time to call her father and get the bad news of the Gaia’s Steel. Who knows. Maybe they’ll pull through. But, for now, her father told her to stay put, and soon her phone was uploaded with a number of contacts in the area.
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