Werewolves - for worthallthis

[ofmarble]

This is not the first time Natasha Romanoff has played bait, nor even the first time she's allowed herself to be captured in order to allow an enemy to bring her into a place that would have been difficult to infiltrate in a more conventional manner. That this time the difficulty is a result of the location being hidden rather than merely a matter of security is academic. Still, as she wakes with her head throbbing and her muscles burning in a manner that tells her in no uncertain terms that the cocktail of drugs she'd been injected with in order to render her unconscious long enough to transport was definitely laced with silver, she allows herself a moment to curse the fucking plan.

She cracks her eyes open just enough to peer through the lashes, noting her own cage and the others beyond, stretching in a double row in what resembles nothing so much as a maximum security dog kennel. A shockingly optimistic kennel - she counts thirty such cages, including her own, and only a half dozen others are occupied. Some of the captives are in skin, and others, like her, are in fur, most just beginning to stir groggily, to taste the chemical-stale air and stain it with an acrid spike of panic.

Overhead, an intercom crackles. The droning voice is carefully modulated, native accent suppressed so that even should something go wrong and one of their captives escape, they won't be able to give much information. She catches a hint of Scotland on the vowels, which only confirms existing intel - international, mercenaries. A private concern, both more and less dangerous than something more structured, more organized.

The list of instructions is both brief and an utter lie. There will be no large sum of money for any of them who survives three nights - even acting through technology, safely anonymized, it would be far too great a risk to let any of them live. But it gives her a timeframe. Three days, and then they'll lure in any remaining victims, and trade the monsters paying to hunt supernatural creatures for soldiers trained and paid to hunt the same.

A harsh buzzing sound signals the opening of an airlock leading out of the kennel-prison, and the cell doors open with a dull metallic thump. Most of the captives make an immediate and instinctive break for the thin promise of freedom, and the warning that the cells will be electrified in one minute is enough to drive the rest into the airlock in a milling, fear-scented knot of skin and clothing and fur. The airlock door shuts behind them, and for a long moment they're trapped in the cramped, too small space, unable to advance, unable to retreat. Then the door before them hisses and begins to grind slowly open, letting in viciously cold air and the weak light of a sun halfway through its descent to the horizon. Illuminated by the dying sun is the burnt-out corpse of a town, the nearest buildings slumping in decay. The shadows of a forest lie beyond, but it's a long run to the treeline, and that's doubtless exactly where the hunters are expecting most of them to head.

15 minutes, the voice on the intercom had promised them. Not long enough to make it to the forest, even if they don't, as she suspects they will, cut the time in half.

15 minutes, and the hunt begins.

Comments

[ofmarble]

The sound of the limb reconfiguring is harsh enough that Natasha's ears pin back; she can't imagine how unpleasant it must be to feel the reverberations through sinew and bone. She has no doubt that it's painful - lupine and human anatomy are hardly a perfect match, and she very much doubts any effort was made to mitigate that.

She swallows her lingering wariness, and shifts back in a shiver of grey and russet fur, reverting to the shape of a young woman just outside the tent's entrance, remaining crouched low to limit visibility - there's no trace of anyone close enough to see, but discarding caution would be sheer folly.

"How many more are we looking at?" she asks, voice pitched low and as gentle as she can make it with the adrenaline of the hunt still singing in her veins.

[worthallthis]

"Two teams. Four each."

His voice is rough, clearly unused for a long time. He can't actually remember the last time he was a man. In this shape, he can kind of think of himself as a "he", though he's still as much of a weapon as ever.

He doesn't watch her. He doesn't watch her, his eyes roving everywhere else, looking for sources of threat.

"But handlers aren't here. They can send more. Once they know it's me killing them." A pause. Then the slow correction: "Us."

[ofmarble]

Her own watchfulness isn't quite so obvious - but then, she was trained for a very different purpose. There's little use for a spy who's overtly wary, who lets on that she knows she's in enemy territory while the game's still running. She seems calmer, but she's still listening for telltale signs, voices or footfalls or engines, still scenting the air for anything besides the two of them and the dead would-be murderers in the tent.

"How far to the nearest outpost?" she asks. Eventually, his handlers will realize that something's gone horribly wrong, even if ego and complacency obscure exactly what that 'something' is. But a response will take time. They have that much going for them.

[worthallthis]

"Nearest handler is back at base. One hundred eight-six miles from this complex. Field command is in the security office in the building you were released from." Field command is the one with connection to the handlers, who can call in backup.

He frowns. "Prioritize taking out field command to slow response time, or prioritize taking out field teams to protect the shifters." There are pros and cons of each, but if the red-eared wolf wants to go one way or the other, he can work with it.

[ofmarble]

The line of her mouth thins slightly as she runs the math in her head, weighing lives risked now against lives saved overall. Either way, there will be more marks in her book, but the bill on one side will be substantially longer.

"Field command," she says. "Protecting the shifters won't mean much if they have a chance to call in a strike team."

[worthallthis]

His lip curls-- not at her, or the plan-- but at the field command. At the idea of tearing their throats out. It's a wolfish expression on a human face. He doesn't always remember who they are, but he knows the smells this time, and there's a fierce pleasure at the idea of tearing the bearers of those scents apart.

No time to sit and imagine. The longer it takes them to plan, the longer field command has to figure out what happened. He turns back towards the building the red-eared wolf came from. "I have the codes to get into the building. Come."

And he shifts back to wolf, landing in a lope the instant the metal leg is back into wolf configuration.

[ofmarble]

Her own transformation is a little slower, the last of the poisoned sedatives still lingering in her system suppressing the lightning-fast shift she should be capable of. She shakes it off faster this time, and breaks into a steady lope beside him, risking bunting his flesh-and-bone shoulder with her own in what she hopes is a recognizable gesture from days long past - I have your back - before falling into a familiar two-person hunting formation.

[worthallthis]

It shies, baring teeth at her a moment without losing a stride forward, only to belatedly remember the wolfish meaning of the signal. Watched other wolves do it. Watch men do it. It hasn't been applied to itself in so long.

Teeth go back behind lips and it watches her sidelong, one ear cocked. Then its tail gives a half-hearted wave, and all focus goes to the mission.

They're ghosts sidling up to the building the shifters had all been released from, no one expects their prey to come around the back of the building, where what used to be the tack room for the configured barn has been turned into a fortified elevator leading below to the sheltered bunker. The Asset changes back into a man again to punch in the code that opens the doors. Then they can go in and... wait for the elevator to descend.

Not great for their element of surprise, but with luck Field Command below will think it's the missing team making a strategic retreat.