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Joshua worked hard to keep his expression calm and his muzzle smooth as he stepped onto the dinghy. His military training helped with the feigned confidence but he knew this trip carried a certain risk of his being discovered. The wolf was in plain clothes for this assignment, which was fine: his instructions were not to fight, they were to watch and listen, and report on the group with pictures and sound bytes. So long as he kept a low profile, his target wouldn't realise who he was. To her, he was just 'Mike'. Tsunami, however, had turned up in her full supervillain gear. That wasn't a surprise - she'd have more of an impact on the whalers that way. Strewth, she stank! She smelled almost of fish, but not quite. Josh didn't want to think about it, but when he did, he figured it was a cross between fish-smell and musk. The kind that got right into the back of his sinuses and probably wouldn't go away for days, no matter how much fresh sea air he breathed in, full of base notes and much too body-odourish for his tastes. Joshua realised that his muzzle was starting to wrinkle again, and he relaxed the muscles of his cheeks. He couldn't be seen to react too hard to Tsunami's fishy stench. No, he was here because of his ability to record the events without bringing any kit. His hypersensitivity to smell was inconvenient, but if he hadn't thought he could handle this he shouldn't have accepted the job in the first place. "Ready?" Tsunami boomed, posing at what passed for the dinghy's helm, every inch the proud captain, her long hair waving in the wind. The ostrich responsible for loading on supplies finally stepped on board and nodded. "Then cast away!" The tall bird obeyed amid whoops and cheers from the assembled direct activists, and they were off! Joshua found a spot at the edge of the dinghy where he could get blasted by a constant supply of fresh air and look away if he had to screw up his muzzle again. He took his mind off the whiff of fishy musk by rehearsing in his mind how he was going to behave when they met the whalers. He didn't like whaling any more than Tsunami did. But to bring down this group of activists in the act of stopping the whalers was his latest job, he had to remember that.

 xXxTsunami settled down in the middle of the boat, aware of the importance of her position and its effect on her team. Most kept in close contact with her: while not getting too close (out of fear of her and also to keep away from the worst of her stink), they kept looking at her, smiling, confident to have her at their side. Most did, anyway. Mike, the grey wolf who had joined the team relatively late in the planning of this action, continued being distant. That was easy enough to explain, since a lot of people found Tsunami scary as well as smelly, and some people were just distant by nature. But since his second visit to their HQ onwards, something about him had struck her as just a little bit off. He looked to be enjoying the sea breeze, breathing in draughts of it with an almost compulsive rhythm. He looked at Suzie, the pygmy hippo by his side, and the pair exchanged bright, excited smiles. Mike had a certain confidence around other people, but whenever she had tried speaking to him in the past, he'd stiffened up. His expression would become fixed, strained even, and he would avoid saying too much. As soon as she let him go, he would walk a distance away and his breathing would become deep and hard, as if he'd been holding his breath. Tsunami had dealt with this by talking to him at a distance, like she did with most people who couldn't stand her stench. Normally that gave them the breathing space they needed, while at the same time meaning she had to project her voice at her conversational partner and vice versa, which implied confidence on her part and demanded that the other fur only say what they were happy for everybody else in the room to hear. It was eccentric, and eccentricity was good for a supervillain: it helped to create an air of mystery. Normally, Tsunami's technique left people both quietly relieved and noticeably deferential to her, and particularly open and honest with their colleagues, since everyone knew where they stood. In Mike's case, however, it just caused a confusing dynamic. He continued to be guarded with her, and had switched several times between being outgoing and reserved with the rest of the team. Extroverted, then introverted, then extroverted again. She'd been too busy with preparations to check in with him about this, but then, she'd earmarked his out-of-place secrecy for further inspection. The truth was, she'd half-let herself be convinced he was just a secretive person trying to be sociable, and had waited for this trip to see how he coped with being in a confined space with so many other people for so long. If he was naturally introverted, he would run out of social energy soon and try to find a deserted corner in the dinghy. If he kept sociable with the rest of the team, then she would know he was hiding something from her.

 xXxSix hours later they were way out at sea, and Mike was still chatting happily with his team-mates with no sign of an introvert's crash. Suzie, Roger, Pete, Amir... Six hours. Tsunami had been keeping her distance to observe the wolf, but now she made her move. She got up from her seat and made her way to the front where Mike had stayed, in such a way as to corner him there without seeming like that was what she was doing. His optimistic expression dropped as he saw her settle down and nestle cosily up against him. She didn't take her eyes off him, nor his off her. "I'm pretty well-known for stinking, you know," she said. Mike shrugged. "Can't be helped." She leaned in to half-shout in his ear over the sound of the waves and engine. "True. But most don't get as bothered by it as you." He shrugged again. "Nothing to say about that?" she asked. Mike shook his head with an attempt at a lop-sided smile. He was plainly holding his breath. "Hmm," she commented, stood up and put her hands on either side of the bow of the boat, not only blocking him in but leaning into him at the same time. Most non-paras would react predictably to this: freeze with fear, try to pretend they hadn't noticed her stink and politely wait for her to release them. Paras, on the other hand, would stiffen. They may or may not fight, but their fight-or-flight response would definitely be woken up. That, and some of the super community had an over-sensitivity to smell. Tsunami had a good grasp of the difference between a normal and a heightened sensitivity to her scent, and she'd see it as soon as Mike gave up his last lungful of air. His eyes were starting to bulge. They flickered about as if he was looking for an escape route. She kept her gaze on him and smiled slowly. He clamped his throat shut as hard as he could, and turned to look out to sea, probably to get a chance to breathe fresh air. Before he could do that she grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face her again. "Look at me." "Why?" he demanded, too assertively to be a non-para. "Who the fuck are you?" she asked, just as his breath exploded out of his lungs and he instinctively drew in a huge breath. He stopped himself. His eyes bulged and she knew she had a para on her hands. Tsunami took advantage of the fact that he was weakened from oxygen starvation and grabbed him around his shoulders, then rolled onto her back so it was she in the bow, with him trapped in a bear hug. "Who are you?" she demanded again. "Nobody!" he gasped, struggling weakly. Tsunami considered this for a moment, and then decided on her course of action. "I know what you are." I don't know who, but you don't need to know that. "I'm going to do you this one favour. I'm not going to interrogate you, I'm going to throw you overboard. You'll probably be fine with that, right?" He didn't scream in panic, so she guessed that wasn't going to be fatal for him, not even this far out to sea. He could probably swim better than a non-para, or fly, or had a communications link that he could use to get himself out of literal deep water. He was a para, all right. Given that he'd infiltrated their group the way he had, he'd probably been waiting for them to do something illegal before pouncing. He wouldn't do that if he was overboard. Even if he was capable of following them, they'd all seen his face so he wouldn't want to reveal his super identity. 'Mike' said nothing, so she picked him up and, to the astonishment and terror of her team, chucked him into the sea. THE END.