With a sudden influx of newcomers stumbling upon their polluted swamp and  to hang around for the long haul, or at least he hoped that most of them would stay, Beck decided it was high time he rounded all the rogues up for... what had he called it? A meet and greet, right. "Meet and greet" sounded lame, but he couldn't settle upon anything else to call it. It was self-explanatory, and served its purpose on raising everyone up to a first-name basis. However, it was plainly obvious that their commander wasn't a social butterfly, and he would be a fool if he claimed otherwise. To list off his flaws while orchestrating an idle conversation would be a waste of breath -- but he still wanted to talk to people. Primitive instinct ingrained in his being drove the boy to hunt down anything that breathed purely because he was lonely. After being isolated for centuries, he was desperate. He had taken to brainstorming in the morning fog, the sky bleeding indigo as the sun opted to snooze for a few more hours before rising. Mindlessly doodling in the chilled mud, his thoughts were elsewhere as he could only imagine everything going wrong. What if he slipped up and said something morbid? What if his voice was too annoying? What if they were only tolerating him, and were all individually planning to ditch him the moment they saw the chance? Nevertheless, Beck shoved away his doubts and strive for acceptance by the creatures he was leading, and set out to host the awkward and painful event he promised for people to rub elbows in the most boring manners possible. It reminded him of old women at a tea party nobody wanted to attend, and he swore that if had to listen to another bland conversation about Edna and her dead husband, he would personally exorcise himself. Nothing interesting ever happened in those ancient soap operas unless there a dramatic reveal -- Beck's glare brightened at his idea, lantern-like eyes glinting with a malicious sheen as he set off to prepare in the early hours of dawn.

    It took a morning of brainstorming and preparation, but the poltergeist managed to spring an interesting, and hopefully entertaining, twist on the usual greetings and introductions so there could be at least some interaction to look forward to. Besides, who didn't want to know more about your neighbor, specifically the gritty gossip about their darkest secrets? The nosy feline was all for forcing people to expose themselves, and that what he was going to do, of course under the disguise of a regular meet and greet.

    The sun had finally shaken itself awake and climbed to its afternoon peak, obliviously boring down on anything not protected by shade. Beck squinted up at the fiery giant, neglecting to shield his vision as he practically challenged the weather to a knife fight in the woods based on his hate-filled scowl alone. While his apparition was perpetually freezing and his replicated nerves failed to acknowledge the sweltering heat of a quickly-approaching summer, that didn't mean the others weren't immune to heat exhaustion and dehydration. They were pathetic. Expressing his anger towards the sky with an irritable huff aimed straight for the high heavens, the scrawny feline limped through the overgrown streets of the town center, pausing when he arrived at a rotting tree stump. With a wiggle and a pitiful hop, Beck clambered onto the makeshift podium with a discarded can in his jaws, circling around before flopping onto his haunches. After twitching his notched ear not once, not twice, but multiple times as if he were trying to swat away his anxiety like a mosquito, the poltergeist gathered his nonexistent breath, and harshly wheezed, "Guess what, y'all, I said I would hold a, uh, meet'n'greet, so get your asses over here." A bandaged paw moved to sorely rub at the burn scar across through his snout, a subtle clink sounding from the unnoticed chain link gained on his shackled wrists.

      After a few minutes and once it seemed enough of a crowd had gathered, Beck visibly chewed on his tongue in concentration, finally elaborating on his plan in a shrill rasp. "A'ight, this is just any other ol' boring meet'n'greet, where ya say 'hi' and your name, yadda-yadda-yadda -- 'cept after your introduction I'm gonna get to ask y'all a single question that ya have to honestly answer. And if ya refuse my question, ya have to eat one of my l'il friends here --" A smile filled with razor blades split across his disfigured maw as he glanced towards the littered soup can that he had brought with him. It was grimy, partially-eroded by a river's current, and nothing extraordinary, but when Beck plucked it up with an eager paw and tilted it towards the crowd, anyone would wince at its squirming content: fresh, live worms, all writhing on top each other in a fleshy mass. "But, since I know y'all are wimps and don't wanna eat worms or spill your guts, ya get to ask me a question back. To keep things fair or whatever. Besides, who doesn't wanna know more 'bout yours truly?" he muttered with a lilt of sarcasm towards the end of his broken speech. It was the only thing he wasn't excited about. And considering how deep for personal information he would be digging, he was likely to receive the same prodding inquiries back. Hopefully his clanmates were interesting enough to make up for it. Setting his can of worm friends back at his side, Beck scanned the faces of those present for a minute, then waved a frigid paw towards the creature closest to him. "You can go first, then everyone else goes from there." His stumpy tail gave an impatient wag, before he fell back into silence to make way for the tidal wave of introductions.

      It took a moment before Beck fully realized who he ended up jabbing a paw at, filmy eyes narrowing in the direction of the blurred mass as his inky nose twitched with a couple wheezing sniffs before his scowl relaxed into a blank slate of features. He wasn't sure how exactly to feel about Morgan, he wasn't even sure what was going on behind their expressionless mask. Maybe they wore a mask to hide the fact that their face was eaten away by frostbite. Because of wearing an ice mask? The scrawny feline winced, tucking his bandaged paw closer to his chest and tried to ignore the bubbling anger in his mind suggesting methods of revenge. It hadn't been torture, right? She deserved it, everyone who had wronged him deserved it. Pushing aside his skewed sense of justice, Beck wrinkled his scarred snout to feign thought as he concentrated more on hiding his instinctive grudge against the samoyed. What was he doing again? Amber eyes glanced down to the mass of worms in his awkward grip, confusion briefly knitting his brow. Right, intrusive questions. "Where'd ya even come from?" Beck blurted out, foggily remembering the day a mute fluffball charged right into their camp with no reason or excuse. "I mean, like, where were ya livin' before ya came here?" There wasn't much else he could interrogate about, or at least he assumed. He wasn't even sure if Morgan's vocabulary had expanded enough to answer him yet.

    Yet the commander pressed on, idly fidgeting with his can of wiggling friends as Bella lectured Killian. A noise similar to a giggling snort left him, bony shoulders trembling for a split second before his laugh abruptly cut off with a flushed scowl. Brainstorming a question for Killian didn't take terribly wrong; it wasn't too difficult to grasp the concept of entities being able to sense their fellow demons. But what Beck couldn't quite predict just yet was how Killian would react. His head childishly drooped to the right, admiring the jagged scarring engraved into the other's hips.  "Hey, Kills, scar stories are always cool -- how'd ya get those ones?" he wheezed, slouching forward to rest a grimy chin on his elbow with his intact cheek pressed against the metal of his worm can, "They gotta have a good one behind 'em." He couldn't foresee Belladonna's departure from Tanglewood, whether it was fortunate or not. His words were blissfully oblivious to the future as he swiped a tongue over razor-blade teeth in thought, recalling the rare nights were her crying attracted the poltergeist's flighty attention. Nightmares were his best bet, even though he had been spared from them for centuries, so what better chance than now to pry deeper into her fears? "I know you've got some nightmares, Bells, ain't no secret, but what are they 'bout, huh?"

    Amunet distracted him before he could intrude any further with follow up questions that would never be answered. A sickening smirk twisted up ashen lips, not filled with malice but rather knowledge. Beck could have been classified as a serial stalker at this point, constantly trailing behind whoever caught his flighty interest from the shadowed foliage before abruptly switching his target to a random passerby. Helpful when it came to keeping tabs on his members, but not so much when he accidentally blurted something personal he wasn't supposed to know in the midst of a conversation. Amunet's subtle brushes up against a certain war incarnation's side or attempt to wind her tail around his was just the thing Beck had been on the look out for; nothing else could quite cure boredom like good old romantic drama. Specifically only from other people. His favorite part of all relationships were the soap opera-esque break-ups at the end. "So, Am, ya got any, uh, crushes? On a certain someone, maybe?" Part of him shriveled up and cringed at using the word "crush" as if he were nothing more than a snob-nosed schoolgirl, but the other part suppressed a wheezy squeal at the thought of Fenris and Amunet being cute together and whatever else it is that cute couples do. His crooked smile faltered after he spat at enough questions for the crowd, a reminder that he would have to answer their own prying words next. Hopefully no one would get the bright idea to ask him how he died, but it was unlikely. Whiskers bristled and eyes glazed in thought, the poltergeist already weaving together an excuse, a story far less painful as the truth, claws tightening around his aluminum can with an awful squeak of metal.

    A cave. Well, he figured as much. Morgan didn't seem like the type to have been a pampered pet or runaway orphan. They were too... unpredictable, even despite their attempts at integrating into a semi-functional society. "Huh," was all that the boy could mumble out, freckled features drawing closer together as he tried to imagine a fluffball of a puppy roughing it on their own in a cave of all things. A warm, wet one, too. Where in territory was it warm and wet? Pretty much everywhere, which narrowed down his options significantly. "I didn't know we had caves 'round here," he wheezed aloud, claws squeezing the worm can tighter as his straining lungs constricted in pain. Holding back an obnoxious coughing fit, Beck was glad to turn his attention to the elderly polar bear, jaw clenched shut as his shoulders trembled with the abrupt urge to hack up all the blood and water sloshing around in his lungs. At least Morgan skipped over the fact that they had to ask a question back in return -- he really, really didn't want to in the first place, so if they all forgot, then it was better for him.

    It took a moment for him to settle down, a rattling sigh slipping through bloodless lips with a meek cough as he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Who was next again? Through a squinted glare, the poltergeist discerned the towering form of the Russian, blinking in recognition. "Oh, hi there, Zima," the feline rasped with an awkward grin, or an attempt at a grin. It didn't take much thinking to produce a question to ask; Beck quickly rambled to the bear, gesturing to his right eye to help get the message across, "How'd ya get that eyepatch? Sure looks fancy to me." Part of him wanted to ask if he could have it, striving to steal the unique eyepatch to add to his ever-accumulating collection, yet for once, he restrained.