Beck, albeit through a hazy window, could remember the shared desire to slip away from a mother's busied watch every once in a while to explore nearby forests on his own, occasionally a long-forgotten sibling trailing behind with worried complaints and whines. A desire that was snuffed out quickly when he was orphaned and on his own. Yet even as he was thrown into the fires of a struggle to survive, the boy never was one for staying around in a single space for too long. Be it paranoia of trackers finding him, nomadic upbringing, or poltergeist nature later on, Beck was far too restless to remain stationary like so many others were content to.

    While he had settled down for Tanglewood, the commander commonly found himself pacing or wandering the territory just to stretch idle legs. Not that he minded the break from the bustling creatures back at the abandoned town. They had been in hysterics over a missing kid when he left, barely paying enough attention to catch any more information than that simple tidbit. The kid was probably just being rebellious and sneaking out only to come running back with their tail tucked between their legs when they realized how awful it was out there. Maybe a little scare would discourage them from doing it again.

    Or maiming would work too.

    Blood had always been a familiar scent to his keen nose. With the metallic taste floating on the air and growing stronger with each step towards the source, Beck was lured to the carnage as fresh meat attracted a starving mutt. Another trespasser caught in a trap -- a snare if he could remember the placement correctly. Through the overwhelming scent of gushing crimson, however, the bitter whiff of radiation and diseased genetics hung heavy around the scene. That wasn't right; he hadn't caught a glimpse of any mutated wildlife in a while, long enough for him to carelessly forget about the hazards they posed. The mangy feline halted with mud-colored fur bristling down his back, ears perked for any sound other than jaws snapping and garbled laughter. A sharp squeal of pain was enough for him to decide, bloodless guts twisting in the sinking realization as he broke into a sprint. Even with his perpetual limp, he was unsurprisingly fast, having relied on outrunning pursuers during the last years of his life.

    Unlike the bystander cowering in undergrowth, Beck charged from the surrounding ferns without concern for his well-being. It was easy to be selfless when he had no life on the line anymore, after all. Headstrong as he might have seemed in the second where he jumped to the accidental rescue, the poltergeist wasn't foolhardy enough to grapple with two rabid creatures larger than him. At least Amunet had arrived at the same time to handle the second hyena. In similar fashion to when he shed his feline disguise to take on the Typhoon member at their border, the entity blurred into shadowed obscurity for a nonexistent heartbeat, stretching and shifting and then re-materializing all while still lunging himself at the hyena with its jaws locked around Hati's head. All the mutated creature could see next with her eight beady eyes was a pair of antlers belonging to a livid stag ramming into her side. Goring the hyena onto branching antlers, the transformed Beck tossed his head back, viciously shaking the impaled mutant until she slid off blood-slick antlers with a thud on the ground. Multiple holes had been gouged into the hyena's scaled side -- a rare few managing to stab all the way through. Yet as Beck turned to see Amunet plunge a sword into the second hyena, the mutant picked herself back up and made a move to bite at his right ankle. Teeth clamping down on his twisted ankle and reason for a limp earned a shrill yelp of pain from him, the leg threatening to buckle if he didn't pry her jaws off him immediately. The stag desperately shook her teeth from his ankle, kicking her in the jaw before, as it stumbled aside, dealing the hyena a harsh donkey-kick to the flank. The mutant knocked to the ground for a second time and vulnerable, Beck was free to pin her down with a little hoof, baring sharkish teeth unnatural on the image of a deer before rearing back onto his hindlegs and slamming his front hooves down onto her ribcage. The crack of bone wasn't enough for him it seemed; a deranged glint shone in his amber eyes as he stomped on the hyena's side and eventually head again and again and again as if she would suddenly jerk back to life and resume attacking. He didn't stop until the hyena's deformed face had been mashed into a bloody pulp resembling a crushed melon instead of a head, complete with bone and teeth shards for scattered seeds.

    Recoiling from the all too familiar corpse with the mutant's blood coating his entire front and wheezing in short puffs through a flared nose, Beck finally noticed who they were attacking in the first place -- oh shit. The poltergeist gingerly approached Hati on gangly legs he had forgotten how to use, nearsighted eyes tracing the snare's noose coiled around her paw. She would need someone to hold her up while he released the trap so she wouldn't fall, right? "Sorry," was all Beck could mumble out as if she could hear his guilty words, glancing around for any signs of life nearby. Amunet was here, she could help. "Am, hold her up while I get her down." The blood nearly blinded his sense of smell, but with a few huffs and snorts, he picked up on one of his peer's presences just behind him. Unsure of who exactly it was, the stag craned his neck to look over a bony shoulder and gave his notched ear a twitch of curiosity. Swiping a tongue over the scar tissue of his missing cheek out of nervous habit, Beck tilted his head in the direction of Malphas and bleated impatiently, "Go get Nayru." Hoping the young feline would act on his orders, he focused on both attempting to locate the stake keeping the snare strung in the trees and numbly watching Hati's breathing. God, he was too used to gory injuries, was he?

/ weeps because ninja'ed so its probably a lot clunkier than the original

    Soon a swarm of clanmates had gathered around the carnage as if moths circling a lantern. The multiple bodies now in his way didn't make it any easier for his nearsighted eyes to pinpoint the trap's stake. Seeing as how using the shape of a deer was inefficient and cumbersome, Beck quietly shrunk himself back down to the feline apparition of what they all were familiar with, patting around on the blood-spattered mud to find the stake. Finally, a red-slick paw brushed against something wooden, and the poltergeist moved forward to grab at it.

    It didn't take much prompting from Nayru for him to yank the stake out of the mud, loosening the snare's wires and assumedly dropping Hati into waiting arms. Outstretching a paw to slide the loop of wire once tightened around the cub's paw off, Beck was left to wordlessly fall back with the snare remants entangled around his own limbs. Coiling the wire back into a portable bundle was a welcome distraction for him even though the commander's glassy stare burned into everyone present, uncertain if he had registered anything before him or if he was in shock. Hati didn't deserve to be mauled, did she? Beck listened for the usual morbid and apathetic response from the voice dwelling inside his skull, yet to his surprise, no one answered. Temporary relief, at least.