The Lycanthrope Tails. Chapter 21.
The Lycanthrope Tails
Chapter 21
By Roofles
"Should we bring anything else?" Jared felt the need to ask. "I mean this is a, what did you call it?" He asked Frostbite. The man kept in human form, it was what he was comfortable with. Frostbite was more comfortable on all fours and Dakota as a werewolf.
"Stronghold." Frostbite answered, taking a seat. Sometimes Jared waited for him to put on a graduation hat and a monocle for emphasis, as he explained one thing after another to the "new pup."
"What's a stronghold?" Dakota asked, not having been paying attention when they were going over the plan. The russet red wolf was in his werewolf. Itching for a good fight. He scratched behind his ear with one leg for emphasis on that.
"A shut up." Frostbite rolled his eyes, ignoring him.
"Why do you answer his questions and not mine?" The red wolf snarled at the silver fur one, standing up slowly to tower over the four legged silver fur wolf.
"Cause. I like him." The wolf offered as a valid excuse.
"So help me if Jared wasn't here..." Dakota would warn. Just another empty threat as far as Frostbite saw it. Seeing as how the silver fur wolf was never far from Jared these days.
"Anyways... Do we like, need anything else?" Jared asked. They really hadn't brought anything other than their fists to this fight. "Like a tank?" He offered. A tank seemed valid. As Frostbite had explained it, a stronghold wasn't just a place for hunters to stop at for rest and supplies. It was a base. Where they kept their intel and files, where the paper pushers worked. It wouldn't be as easy as something like an outpost would have been.
"This is a search and rescue mission, only." Frostbite clarified once more. "No need to cause any unnecessary damage if we can help it." Frostbite said this mostly to Dakota; the other wolf saw it as a compliment.
"Ahem." Gerald, the fox, was sitting nearby and frowned at that. "What part of kill everything didn't you lot understand?"
"Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that." Frostbite waved him off with a paw making the fox regret his decision in guiding them to this back entrance. It's not like he had any other options though. These were the only ones stupid enough to actually attack a stronghold after all. "Wolf dude." Frostbite said, barking over at Sveil who was keeping watch.
"Urgh, what now?" Sveil groaned looking back over at them. The black wolf was counting the seconds until he could get the fuck out of here.
"You have one job." Frostbite reminded him. "Find the human name Tess. Jared," Frostbite looked over at him. The silver fur wolf's face soften as he looked at the wolf in his human form. The wolf didn't have the heart to tell him how difficult this was going to be. "You're the only one that can save her." Frostbite said in a low voice, trying not to stress the man anymore than need be.
Jared nodded. He honestly wasn't trying to think about it.
"She has been with them for a long time now. You'll have to be careful and try and show her that, despite this..." Frostbite lifted up one of his front paws and looked at it in the dark of night. They had waited until nightfall before attacking. "She might not come willingly."
"I know." Jared tried to steel himself but everyone else there could smell his distress, his worry and it might as well have been written out all over his face how clear it was. Jared was going to save her at any cost, his doubts nearly stunk as bad as the sewer entrance they had gathered around.
"So, that part about the kill everything just what? Went over your head?" Gerald brought up, again. All this clearly bothered the fox. He wanted to hire the tough, merciless killers. Not a band of, whatever the hell this was. The fox really rather not get his own paws dirty.
"Touch my sister and I'll fucking kill you myself!" Jared snapped, that animal part of him rearing its ugly head suddenly due to stress of it all. "I... sorry." Jared looked away, ashamed at his outburst. "Sorry." He said again, rubbing his arm. It had transformed despite his best efforts to contain it.
"No need to be." Dakota comforted him, licking his cheek, and nuzzling his head against him. "I'll fucking kill him for you, ok? Would that make you happy?" The wolf just asked in a cheery voice. "Would you like a nice fox pelt to wear to replace your scarf?"
Jared chuckled lightly, not realizing Dakota meant every single word he had said. He scratched the big lugs head, behind his ears and ended up just hugging his neck tightly. Dakota placed one arm around him, returning the hug. The wolf eyes softened then.
"If it would make you smile, I'll get her myself." Dakota promised him.
"Thank you." Jared wiped a tear away, taking a breath and regretting it instantly.
The secret entrance Gerald had scouted out over the past several months was a sewer tunnel. It was a back entrance, a plan B for escape if necessary for the hunters. The fox had spent the past year watching them and waiting for his opportunity to come. It was during some schedule maintenance on the tunnel that he managed to find it. And with a little force persuasion convinced the hunter to reveal the password.
Still, this place had seen better days. The sewage had piled up in front of the grate the water drained out of. It was tucked away, in a small plot of the city. It was marked off and there were even a couple of hunters, Gerald had pointed out, that kept watch over the plot. They had made their ways up over the rooftops and down the side of one of the buildings to sneak past.
"As long as they didn't change it." Gerald hoped, talking about the password as he began walking ahead of the others and guiding the way. Frostbite stopped.
"Careful." He warned Jared motioning with his head. "Trip wires." The wolf pointed them out with one front leg.
"What would they trip?" Jared asked, still covering his nose with both hands. Having sharp canine senses was a disadvantage in this place. He doubted they would blow up their own escape tunnel. Still, he wasn't about to trip any.
They were concealed amongst garbage or fallen debris from the collapsing tunnel. None of the overhead lights worked and he had to focus, using his inhuman sight to see where to go.
"You don't want to know." Gerald said. The fox had taken a seat, turned to face them, and stood perfectly motionless on the other side of the wires and pressure plates. He looked more like a well sculpted statue of a fox than an actual one. His eyes seemed to glow red in the dark.
"Right." Jared said carefully taking a step over one wire, between two pressure plates and finally the last. It was far more difficult than he had thought, having to curve his spine low and stretch his leg out. It was only thanks to his new-found strength and agility that he made past them. He was sure if he were still human he wouldn't have.
"Also," Frostbite motioned towards the cameras they'd have to avoid. They slowly swiveled back and forth keeping an eye on things. "Also." Frostbite continued. There were very thin red laser lights up ahead. They would have to belly crawl to get underneath them. Only when the cameras weren't watching.
Frostbite didn't. He jumped up, kicked off the sewer tunnel wall and skillfully did a flip over them and onto the other side. He was showing off a bit. Humans might be advancing far quicker than any of them would've thought; still a budget was a budget and these old things could easily be avoided by he wolf. It wasn't his first raid after all. The camera looked like it was about to short circuit, unable to be replaced on the tight wallets of the hunters.
Jared managed to get underneath and to the other side of the lasers. It was easier than he thought. Able to actually see the lasers made things far easier than if not. His inhuman senses could pick up something in the air, able to just avoid that spot and move as need be. And then he watched as Dakota tried to mimic Frostbite and ended up nearly triggering the alarm, belly flopping onto the cement ground on the other side. Right next to him. The large wolf having to shift back into his four legged form to do the act and still nearly landed on him.
Dakota groaned, forcing himself up. Jared helped him out and that made it all worthwhile.
"Idiot." Frostbite rolled his eyes walking over to the metal door. It was far newer than anything else in this place, Frostbite thought. Just then a chunk of the ceiling parted and a rock fell right into the canal of sewage to their side. He gagged as it splashed up onto the side, nearly touching his foot.
Gerald tapped the side of the door and a hidden panel was revealed. The fox cracked it's fingers before skillfully punching in the code with a clawed finger.
"Please place hand on pad." A broken, mechanical voice sounded out. The fox stopped at that.
"Uh..." He said looking over at the others. The camera was slowly turning back towards them and the group had to hide around the corner. "That's new!" He hissed between clench teeth, standing on his rear legs and pressing his body against the curved cement wall in an adjacent tunnel. It had collapsed at some time ending abruptly.
Trapping them where they were.
"Do we just wait then for a hunter?" Jared offered, not getting mad. Frostbite looked like he was going to snap the fox in two.
And then the five of them heard it. The sound of a guy taking a piss off to the side.
"Damnit, I hate guard duty." The hunter groaned, shaking himself dry before zipping up his pants. He picked up the hefty double barrel shotgun and rested it against his shoulder; the man was wearing a heavy swat uniform. Unmarked. It didn't do much good being there when he turned around and saw all five of them looking at him.
He was just as stunned as they were.
"Lucky?" Jared offered with a shrug after Dakota slugged him straight in the face. Breaking his nose, cheeks and jaw as the wolf brought his face straight into the concrete floor after the initial punch.
"I rather not use all our luck before we're even inside." Frostbite growled, glaring at the fox as he placed the unconscious hunters hand up and onto the pad. It scanned over it and with a chime, the metal door slid open.
"Ok, finish him." The fox ordered looking at the hunter in disgust.
"He's knocked out. We don't really need to kill him, do we?" Jared quickly butted in, putting himself in front of the hunter.
"You think they'd give you the same treatment?" Gerald snarled now, baring his black muzzle fur teeth at him.
Dakota rose up a bit at that.
"We'll just tie him up. Come back for him." Frostbite offered not wanting the group to break down into in fighting. One of the worse parts about not having an Alpha in their little group; there wasn't any one dominant figure everyone had to listen too. For good or bad.
"Whatever." Dakota just shrugged, not really caring much.
Sveil just kept silent, knowing none of them would even listen to his opinion on the matter.
"Fine!" Gerald growled. "I'll do it then." The fox angrily began using the man's own shoe laces and coat to fashion a makeshift bind for his arms and legs.
Frostbite noticed but the others didn't. The fox had used one sharp nail to puncture a hole in the unconscious man's throat, covering the wound as quickly as he had made it. The man would suffocate on his own blood.
The silver fur wolf just watched as the fox went ahead of them, still grumbling angrily. Frostbite would have to keep a close eye on this one...
The door sealed shut behind them.
"We'll need another hunter to get out." Jared pointed at an identical number pad and hand scanner on this side.
"That'll be easy to find." Frostbite assured him. "Tess could even do it." He said more cheerfully trying to keep his spirits up. It would be best if he didn't think about what they might have to do.
"Right." Jared nodded as he followed the others. Sometimes it was best just to agree with Frostbite. The wolf seemed to have been around far longer than any of the others and Jared did trust in his judgement. And in him.
He couldn't even say the same thing for the others; even Dakota. The wolf wouldn't hurt him, some part of him knew. Yet, the wolf's paws were soiled. Something that could never be washed clean.
This back passageway was just a long empty tunnel. At least it didn't smell as bad as back there. The lights were dim and their eyes glowed in the dark as they reached the other door, slowly adjusting to the bright sliver of light underneath the far door.
"Things are going to get complicated from here." Frostbite told them, mostly Jared. Unaware how true that statement was...
Outside at roughly the same time, up in the dark of the street a car screeched to a halt as a trio of people walked down the middle of the road.
"Asshole! Get out of the road, you stupid bum!" The driver shouted, sticking his head out the window and shaking a fist at the three.
The woman gave him a toothy smile at that and in a flash, his arm was missing. Her nails cleanly slicing through his body like a knife through butter. Her massive hair had been permed and pressed, making it larger than her head as she landed next to the car, moving so fast the average man couldn't keep up. Her hair stuck up with far too much product and fell all the way down her back like a roaring water fall.
The man screamed out in shocked horror as he grabbed his bleeding arm. He was soon silenced, with a kiss. She slipped her tongue into his mouth giving him one last sweet gift before stealing his breath away, literally, and leaving him dead in the car that was still on.
She wiped her pale lips clean and looked back at the other two.
"Just stand there, don't do anything." Miranda got on them, placing a hand on both her hips. She was wearing a tight work out suit with a bikini on over it with bright work out ankle and wrist scrunchies. This woman looked as if she had stepped out of an old 80s gym magazine, clearly not up to date on the times.
One of those small things people seemed to miss. While monsters tried their best to hide in public; it was hard to keep up with all the fashion trends when you didn't age like a human did.
The largest of the group only grunted, ignoring her and continued walking towards the orphanage at the end of town. He wasn't just a large man. He was massive. Like a small giant he continued to walk forward in a suit that was ripping at every seam.
"You seemed to have everything, in hand." The third spoke. He stopped. His shaggy face splitting into a smile and let out a single loud laugh. "Get it? A hand? Because you cut off his hand? Get it? Did you, did you get it?" He asked several times, his face spreading even wider as he smiled at his own stupid joke. There were one too many teeth in his mouth, each sharper than the last.
Miranda only frowned at that and ignored him, following after the other.
"Sorry, sir." A hunter in disguise stopped him as he approached. The giant still had a good ten steps before he would be front of the man. "The orphanage is closed." The giant of a man took another step. The hunter motioned behind him. "The place is being fumigated." The human tried to explain it away, hoping he wouldn't have to use force.
The hunter was outside the building, next to a large white van that had child danger written all over it. There was a barricade set up with police tape and everything. Orange cones were scattered around the vehicle.
"For the past year?" The woman asked, taking a step forward. She seemed to have appeared out of the very air from behind the giant that still took massive, heavy steps forward without stopping. He was slow. Too slow for Miranda's taste. The hunter stopped at that, unsure how to answer.
She was... intoxicating. Her breasts were firm. Her lips supple and moist, glistening in a street lamp. She seemed to be slightly sweaty and was trying to dry off her neck, exposing her tan neck to him. A tan that was almost the color of bronze.
"What about the kids?" The third asked. "Or are they the... bugs you're trying to get rid of?" And he laughed again. A single loud sound as he looked at the others to see if they got his joke once more, scratching the side of his fuzzy face quickly with a hand as if it were infested with fleas.
"I-it's closed, miss." The hunter continued. The door to the van was open and he was reaching inside for his gun, just in case. Yet, there was something in the air. A smell. It was sweet and his sense of reason was being clouded.
By now the skilled hunter would have already drawn and fired on the giant. Yet, his whole focus was on her and no one else. Like a siren singing her song, Miranda had trapped him in her own spell. Weaving the scent around him like a vice, tightening on his throat and sense of reason. Unaware of the danger he was in.
They weren't any average monster after all.
"I just wanted to adopt a cute, plump... delicious, child." She whispered, taking a step towards him and placing a hand on his chest. She could feel the body armor on underneath his shirt. And here she was, hoping he really was this big muscular man instead of a tiny one hiding away.
She pressed her lips against his, stealing a kiss. His breath. And life away, letting the limp body collapse to the ground. Miranda knew that he had just checked in, giving his report that the coast was clear. It was all thanks to the handy report they had gotten on this Stronghold.
"What a pity." She shook her head, licking her finger clean. "And here I was hoping there was a man who could actually satisfy me."
"We both know, you just need some beef." And the third man nudged the largest of them with his elbow. Not once or twice but five times. "Get it? Get it?" He cackled loudly. His voice echoing down the street without a care.
The giant of a man just grunted without reply, moving forward. He walked right through the barricade set up outside the orphanage. Through the yellow warning tape. And right through the door without stop. The concrete cracking, the metal bars reinforcing it bending and with another step he was threw.
Miranda followed behind, pulling out a thorn whip from between her breasts while Krush was grinning from ear to ear as he shed away the illusion of a man, rising tall as a laughing monster with arms that dragged on the floor and a muzzle that couldn't fully close because of all the teeth in it.
The group of wolves, and fox, had only gotten into the third hallway when the sirens went off. Loud alarms that blared throughout the labyrinth of stone walls.
"What did you do?" Frostbite snapped his jaws at Dakota, instantly figuring it had been his doing.
"Why is it always my fault?" The wolf snarled back.
"Nine times out of Ten, it is!" Frostbite growled back.
"This might be the tenth time then..." Jared pointed out as a group of hunters ran past him, each looking like a group of militia members. They ran right past the hallway they were conspicuously standing in without even noticing them.
Something had caught their attention and took precedent over the intruders.
"What are the chances..." Frostbite spun around on the fox, only to find Gerald wasn't there anymore. "Damnit!" He cursed loudly.
The door to their side opened up as a hunter, just getting out of the shower and still in his bathrobe, stopped to look at them.
"Judo, chop!" Dakota said loudly. He didn't chop the guys neck. Like a horse, he back kicked the hunter. The man flew all the way into the other wall and landed on his stomach with the whole bookcase falling over him.
"That wasn't a..." Jared just face palmed as he hurried into the room with the others.
"So, change of plans." Frostbite said then stopped, thinking about it. "Same plan. On overdrive. Find and rescue the damsel, get the fuck out of here."
Gerald had left the others, figuring they'd only slow him down. "Who could have?" He kept asking himself, slipping underneath and around another group of hunters.
Hunters had a motto. Never fight alone. Humans could never match a monster one on one. They knew they had the superior numbers, usually, and firepower. As such teams were formed, each with their own "cute" nickname Gerald had learned over the past several months keeping watch on this place.
He wasn't about to let everything he'd been working for end. Not unless it was his doing.
It was Tess, sitting in one of the breakrooms that ended up noticing something was amiss. The alarms went off and everyone began to panic. Grabbing their weapons and tracking down the other members of their team. Tess was supposed to report to Benjamin. She didn't.
Her concern was elsewhere as she headed back the other way, towards the lab or medical wing she had been at only a couple of hours ago. If everyone was running towards the front doors, that left key locations like that unguarded. Which was exactly where she'd go first...
"All the pieces are laid out." The fox stopped in the very breakroom she had been in. He moved a paw over the ground and a board appeared out of thin air. Or maybe, it had always been there and he had just pulled the veil away.
It looked like a chest board. Several pawns placed seemingly random all over it. The one tail fox looked down, turning around to make sure now one was watch and went back. He had two tails now.
"Show me what my eyes cannot." He whispered down to the board. Like a wigi board there was a wooden plachette in the middle. The heart-shaped piece of wood began to move on it's own, slowly rising off the board. "Show me. Where he lies..." And then, with the pointed it, it began to slowly move.
Move towards where Tess had headed.
The five-tailed fox ignored the board and quickly followed the pathway it pointed out with red eyes.
Up above in the orphanage; there was a blood bath. The traps set up all within the main room had been triggered by the lumbering giant. Still, he walked forward without stopping. Doors, walls, trip wires? Nothing seemed to slow his steady, slow pace down as he headed straight for the hidden entrance into their underground hide out.
Bouvo suit had ripped by this point. Some of it was smoldering, hanging by scraps from his shoulder from the RPG he took to the chest. Underneath his suit was a rich brown fur that covered his entire body. All the way up to his bovine head and down to his massive hooves that crushed one of the humans "contraptions" under it.
Bouvo was old. From a time long since past. He didn't know what these humans used or the machine that could work and move on their own. The turret turning towards him and hailing him with bullets. The Gatling gun trained in on his heat signature, a small red dot centered on his chest as it rained death from above.
The bullets dug into his hide, leaving small indentations and felt like bee stings as the minotaur slowly looked up at it. It reminded him of an angry beehive, even making a similar sound as he crushed it with one hand and ripped it out from the ceiling and onto the ground with everything else.
"The hell is that thing?" One of the hunters asked, setting up a clean shot at the far end of the hallways. Down past all the rooms the kids would've used and at the approaching monster. He had a rifle in hand, looking through the scope. It took him a second to find the bovines head and then moved down between his legs. "Even a beast would feel this." And he pulled the trigger.
The gun jammed and he had enough time to pull back to look at it before losing his head. It was covered in thick vines, a flower sprouting out of the end as Miranda wrapped both hands around his head and twisted it off with a sickening pop.
Blood sprayed the hallway as she dodged another hunters sword. The silver gleamed in the light he pulled back, ramming it right into her chest and skewering her into the wall.
Miranda gasped, looking down at it. "No, how you could. Inconceivable." And she smiled, reaching down to grasp the handle he was still holding. She leaned forward as the startled hunter moved back, watching as she pulled it out. "Silver? Really darling?" And she stuck it through his skull, up from his jaw and out the top. "I expect gold on our first date."
There was a click behind her and she had time to turn around in time to see the flame ignite, the flame thrower burned her alive.
Miranda did scream out at that, thrashing back as the hunter in a full body bunker suit with a face mask torched her. He kept pressing the advance, not relenting a second as his two comrades burned with her. They screamed out in pain as flesh melted from their bones.
Even Bouvo stopped at the sight of those flames.
Fire was one of the universal enemies to the things of the night.
That was when their third member moved in. Quicker than even Miranda he broke through the side walls, jumping out right behind the hunter. The monstrous beast, looking almost like a hyena, ducked down close to the floor as the hunter turned that flamethrower at him. Krush swept right past him, lashing out with one his gnarled hands.
He didn't hit the hunter, no. He was aiming for one of the tubing connecting the gun to the backpack the hunter wore. Fuel sprayed all over, igniting the next second and the hunter cried out as he ignited.
Krush watched the man burned, slipping out of the room that had started on fire. "When you play with fire. You get.... Burned." And the monstrous hyena bursted out laughing, a cackling sound of a maniac as he watched in delight. "Hey, hey Miranda! Did you hear me?" The hyena asked looked over at the crispy woman.
She was burnt black, her flesh peeling off as she slowly stood back up from the rubble Bouvo had knocked onto her to put the flames out. The minotaur walked past them, continuing their mission.
Miranda flesh had peeled away showing off brilliant emerald scales as her legs changed, closing together, and forming into a massive serpent's tail. She rose, shirtless as her tan skin was replaced by something akin to wood. Her hair was even more wild than it had been before.
She just hissed at him with a forked tongue, watching as Bouvo pulled the metal latch clean out of the floor and showing off the secret passageway into the stronghold where these hunters had come from. She slithered past them quickly, slipping into the hole before anyone else.
More gunfire could be heard in the dead of night as the building began to burn around them. It was soon silenced, followed by the screams of the living turned dead.
"Ah, she got. She got." Krush nodded as he jumped down after her. Bouvo looked into the far too small opening for him and began searching for another entrance into the stronghold.
Tess threw the two heavy metal doors open as she stormed into the lab. Expecting to find the intruder right here and now. Instead, she met with her friend. Tiny Tim.
He was slumped against one of the gurneys, using it for support. He was having trouble breathing. Tess accessed the situation closely, looking around and making sure it wasn't a trap before moving forward.
"Tess." Tim choked out, looking away from her and holding his side.
"What happened?" She asked, looking around once more. She reached out a hand towards him, then stopped. He was using both his legs to stand. His injured, crippled leg he had received as a child from a monster attack was healed now.
She took a step back.
"Get away! Quickly." Tim begged, pleading now as he thrashed falling to the ground. He convulsed, coughing out several of his teeth as he looked up at her. His face was twisted, looking as if another face was trying to grow out through his own.
Tess knew better than to stick around and turned around, planning to flee quickly. The doors slammed shut behind her, locking. A large dead bolt sealing the two doors shut. She still ran off to pull on them, trying to get out.
"Tess. Welcome." A voice chimed in from above over the speakers. "It looks like it's time for your physical." And a laugh followed that as the Good Doctor looked out from his balcony window and down.
Tess spun the knife in her hand around, pulling out the revolver she had stolen from the other hunter and aimed it up at the monster before her.
"Tess." Tim begged, looking at her. "Kill me..."
And then a howl broke out, ripping from his chest, through his throat and out the muzzle that broke free of the human mask of Tim's face.