Being on an actual schedule with existing tasks to complete and non-imaginary "friends" to worry about sure was stressful. Even more stressful than murder. But from his bystander experience, serving for the group of misfits as their leader shouldn't be terribly hard. He just needed to... get the hang of it. The boy was adaptable -- even if he hadn't changed over the course of five-hundred years. But the pitiful lie was enough to induce the slightest pang of confidence in his damaged chest. He could recall his own suggestion of hosting a meeting regularly, and to maintain the weak bond of trust between him and the group, he had to uphold his promise. What even was in a meeting? It all sounded so boring to him. He spent an eternity slouched against the statue's rubble once towering in the town's plaza, shredding stray moss with his claws as he gathered possible words to announce and what not. Gnawing on his inner lip until he gagged at the foul taste of demonic blood in his mouth, the poltergeist finally shifted from his position. Yet instead of scrabbling up to take his place on the statue and shrieking out for a meeting, Beck simply vanished from existence, his mangy apparition flickering into pure nothingness as he slunk from the public.

    Unfortunately, he didn't abandon his growing group, leaving them to either disband or kill each other. The youthful commander returned much later with the neck of a two-faced fawn in his jaws, the fragile monster already beginning to rot and expose mutated organs. Silt clung to its dappled pelt and Beck's paws were muddied with a new layer of filth, evidence that Beck had exhumed the body from an unmarked burial spot. His height and the dead weight of the fawn forced him to kick and wrench himself up to the stone platform, but he miraculously managed, adjusting the crooked deer from its awkward knot of flimsy knees, resting its chin on its hooves so it would appear to be innocently admiring the crowd through glassy eyes. Patting the stiffened corpse with frigid paw, Beck himself shook out his matted pelt, hoarsely inhaling unnecessary air before crowing out, "Y'all get your asses over here for a meeting!" A smug smirk contorted itself onto his half-scarred lips when creatures grumbled and dragged themselves at the base of his statue, wickedly beaming to himself at the thought of being able to control these fools with only a single shout.

    The pride didn't last long as he realized he had forgotten what to say.
Beck stared, dumbfounded, back at the crowd with dead eyes matching the mutated fawn's, a single strand of vibrant blue spit dripping from his missing cheek before he snapped from his stage-fright trance. "Uh, well, looks like we've lasted 'bout a week without anybody dyin' or whatever. A pretty good start if ya asked me --" Damn it, he was about to ramble off into a tangent again. Huffing, the poltergeist began to tap an unsheathed paw against the statue's ledge, creating a hollow tic that served as a metronome for his thoughts. "Let's just get to business. For starters, every group needs a cool-ass name. This town we're in already has a name, luckily, and it was called 'Tanglewood' back in the day. Y'all already started callin' us that, so why change it?" A pause from his breathless stammering, and after a moment of wheezing, he continued, "And I should probably welcome and thank everyone, even though it's cheesy and gross. But, whatever. I'd like y'all to meet the folks who were here at the beginning: Amunet, a-k-a the lady with the cool snake; Harper, who seems chill from what I've seen; Vladimir, that blind dude in the back; and Venus, uh, the science lady. 'Course there's still a bunch of ya left, and I'll try to be quick. Seraphina, fox-lady; Lance, the redhead in the glasses; Happycamper -- he gives out free food; Matty, he's the l'il spider guy so don't step on him or nothin'; Nocturne, spooky lookin' kid over there." Jeez, why were there so many of them? At least they were quite the diverse community. Lazily gesturing to individuals in the crowd and occasionally glancing upwards in an attempt to remember names, Beck finished off the list of members with a rushed sigh, "Buggedout, the crystal kiddo; Oberon, antler guy -- watch out for pranks; Valo-kas, they've got... cool pink slime; Rosepaw, gotta admit, she's quite the looker but I ain't into that shit; Belladonna, she's actually really helpful; Cherrywine, she's just joined so be 'nice'; and last but not least, Hestia, the l'il anklebiter.

    Now that everyone's all buddy-buddy with each other, it's time for the borin' stuff." Politics; Beck suppressed a childish gag at the thought. Disused voice ragged and grating like sharpened nails being dragged across a chalkboard by the time he could discuss important subjects, he dryly swallowed the stinging pain of speech and croaked, "I got invited to a meetin' 'tween the leaders of the other clans poppin' up, and to report back, they're not much of a problem now. There's 'the Ascendants' and they will probably never be a threat, but 'Snowbound' and 'the Typhoon' can be. The snowbirds ain't gonna get in anyone's business, but the Typhoon bastards have already started to think they can walk all over our borders and stick their noses in our beeswax. From now on, if anyone from the Typhoon tries to waltz up to our territory, you have my permission to kill 'em on the spot. Or capture 'em, chase 'em off, just keep 'em out. We ain't gonna tolerate disrespect, ya hear?" Bitterness oozed from his words at the memories of Pincher and his condescending ego and everything about him. But he had to move on. "And, plus, turns out our territory ain't so safe," He nudged the mutant fawn's flank, sure for the crowd to catch a good glimpse of its merging faces and failing body. "This l'il sucker died right outside the town the other day, and obviously, it ain't all too healthy. Now, it could be just some birth defect, but I doubt it. The entire swamp smells weird and I don't like it. Until we can figure it out, don't hang out in the swamp, got it? Who knows what else is lurking out there? And I would be around more often, otherwise ya might end up like him." The fawn's purpose served, Beck promptly kicked the corpse off his announcement ledge, where it thudded against the cement at the crowd's feet with a broken crunch and unceremoniously twisted over itself in a limp knot. Scare tactics would surely get people to help out more, right? Brushing off his muddied paws as if just handling garbage, the boy settled back into his throne of rubble, anxiety still clear in his visage despite his feigned nonchalance.

    "On a couple of happier notes, I've been workin' on organizing the clan system and what not, startin' with ranks. Leading's a tough gig apparently, so I'm gonna need more help -- so now there's gonna be high positions. Y'all will get yourselves promoted, startin' now, if ya are around a bunch and are welcomin', helpful, all that jazz. It's not that hard to meet my standards, in fact, some of y'all already impressed me. Shout-outs to Amu, Venus, Bella, Bugs, Noc, Valo, and Vlad. Keep it up and you'll snag yourselves a fancy new rank." Not like he wanted anyone challenging his newfound power, but carrots on sticks would keep the group entertained. What else was left? Sorely rubbing a black-iron shackle tightened around his wrist, Beck mumbled to himself in a struggle to remember before suddenly jerking his attention back to the crowd. "Oh, I almost forgot -- any group that doesn't wanna die out needs doctors and shit, so I'll be holdin' medic tryouts later this week. And a weekly-tasks-thingy has started, so if ya wanna check it out, too, that'd be great. This week is Venus' turn, so be on the lookout for that." A yawn stretched his disfigured jaws, and flicking away beads of chemical drool, Beck finally concluded his tirade of harsh wheezing with a simple request: "If anyone wants to suggest an event to keep y'all busy or discuss somethin' I said or even public announce somethin' else, feel free. But I don't got all day, so hurry it up." Hopefully he shouldn't have to clarify too much; his voicebox hurt like hell and he wasn't eager to speak for the next fifteen years. Resting his chin on a folded elbow and one idle paw swinging over his ledge, the poltergeist awaited the crowd's response to the flood of information with a dull glint in his lantern-like eyes.