Dogs of War

A mysterious disappearance of high school students in Tennesee draws the attention of the younger members of X-Force, who uncover lack magic and demon summoning in a small Smoky Mountains town.

Cast

Marie-Ange Colbert, Doug Ramsey, Wanda Maximoff, Sarah Morlocke, Mark Sheppard, Amanda Sefton

Timing

November 1-3, 2006

Plot Summary

As part of his daily tasks at the Snow Valley Memorial Centre For Mutant Affairs, Doug uncovered a news story of a silver 'werewolf' hit by a truck driver in Tennesee. In itself nothing to take notice of, but it was followed up with a missing person's report for five teens from the same small town. Positive it was something that needed investigating, especially after confirming with Charles Xavier it was not a mutant manifestation incident, Doug and the younger members of the team insisted on going down to Tennesee to investigate, Wanda going to supervise.

Arriving in Tennesee, Mark infiltrated the school as a new transfer student, using his good looks and charming personality to uncover various rumours about the missing students. Doug and Marie-Ange posed as a cub journalist and photographer and spoke to the resident doctor/medical examiner, who had been given the human skin found at the scene of the accident. He showed them photographs of the skin, which had disappeared from the morgue without trace the following night; the photographs included a mark or rune on the back of the neck, which Doug was able to translate as meaning 'door'.

Wanda met with the state trooper who had reported the teens missing, at the scene of the accident, and the pair of them followed tracks to a point in the woods where they vanished utterly. Sarah and Amanda posed as backpacking students and talked to the locals, uncovering talk of a mysterious silver dog sighted in the woods, as well as crop losses. The missing teens were thought to have simply run away.

Meeting that evening to compare notes, Amanda recognised the rune as somehow magical, and it was decided she and Wanda would research it the next day. Whilst wondering aloud who would use magic to hurt teenagers, Sarah pointed out it was most likely to be another student: Mark had heard talk of Josh Chambers, a misfit and victim of bullying who had also disappeared, although his departure was seen as a relief by the popular cliques. In order to determine Josh's whereabouts, Mark was to talk to Josh's only friend, a tomboyish girl called Eddie Caldwell. The remaining group would continue in their roles, asking questions around the small town of Fredericks.

Mark successfully convinced a worried and guilty Eddie to give him directions to the place Josh was hiding, an abandoned cabin in the woods. Gathering Doug, Marie-Ange and Sarah as back-up, they arrived at the cabin to find an exhausted, frightened, uncooperative Josh. He had in his possession a large, leather-bound book. As they were questioning him, trying to get him to talk, Amanda phoned Doug, having discovered the rune was indeed a summoning spell, one that summoned demons known as the Warwolves, powerful and ruthless. Just as she was telling them to get out of there, the connection failed, and the Wolves themselves arrived at the cabin and a desperate battle ensued to protect Josh from them.

Wanda and Amanda, having 'borrowed' a motorcycle, gatecrashed the battle. Amanda headed for Josh's spellbook, trying to find a counterspell, to no avail. Then Doug, shaking off the mesmerising effect of the Warwolves' gaze, was able to communicate with them, and discovered their summoning was part of a compact - in return for seeking revenge on the summoner's enemies, they were entitled to take the summoner with them. If the compact was broken, they would be free to possess whomever they would instead of being bound to the skins of the five missing teens. Josh listened to this, horror-struck, and whilst his would-be rescuers continued to try and fight off the Warwolves, he made the decision to sacrifice himself for the sake of everyone around him. Breaking past the defenders, he gave himself to the Wolves, and they returned to their own dimension, leaving only the skins of the six teens behind.

The group took their 'failure' hard, the incident highlighting to all of them the nature of the work they had taken on, that sometimes there would be hard choices. This especially was emphasised by Remy on their return to New York, who pointed out they had stopped the end of the world, even if it had cost the life of the boy they'd tried to save.

Related Links

Warwolves

External Links

Dogs Of War

Trivia and Meta

Trivia

Dogs of War was the first 'mission' where the younger members of X-Force were making the decisions themselves.

Meta

Plotrunners: Rossi

The Warwolves are based on the [comic canon version], but instead of inter-dimensional beings they are demons.