TIGER NATION III
Feb. 19th, 2023 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermesTIGER NATION III
2/21/2022
I.
"In a way, we are helping Mankind," Baron Shogren told the twenty-four monsters assembled in front of his beach house. Arrayed in a loose semi-circle on the white sand, they looked at first to be an assortment of normal men, all in their thirties and forties, all wearing casual clothing. At the moment, their teeth were not fangs and their fingernails were not claws.
Shogren's harmless appearance was also deceptive. Even to a suspicious eye, he seemed to be an unremarkable Asian of medium height, with the full head of glossy hair and smooth skin of a young man. But he had looked like that for more than one hundred and forty years. The Baron retained a distinct Norweigian accent which provided an incongruous clash with his apparent ethnic background. Egil Shogren had been delving beyond the borders of rational scientific research for a long time.
Standing slightly behind him was a woman of college age, her long curly black hair falling down her back. She wore a white lab smock identical to hers. While Shogren was addressing his creations, she kept silent but a smug smile played around the corners of her mouth.
Facing his Tigermen, he continued, "Nature tries to provide a balance. When predators become too numerous, there aren't enough prey animals to support the numbers. When prey animals become too numerous, the food supply isn't sufficient to support the numbers. The balance is always restored but the human race has ruined that balance where it is concerned."
From the crowd, a sullen voice spoke up. "Get to the point, boss."
"Mankind has eliminated all the animals who would be its natural predators. The cave bears, the sabertooths, the terror birds have all vanished. Even tigers only survive in tiny numbers, unable to keep human populations down. Look at the results. The planet is staggering under the weight of billions of people. It's not a question of whether worldwide famine will kill the population of entire continents, it's a question of when!"
Short barking laughs sounded from several of the Tigermen. They could not keep themselves from shifting their weights from one foot to the other or pacing a few steps back and forth. One said, "Hah. But that doesn't take US into account, does it?"
"No, it does not." Baron Shogren folded his arms across his chest and smiled at his creations. "You twenty-four are only the first wave. When the Zhune artifact has had time to recharge, I will finalize your transformations and then you will be transported to widely scattered places all over the world. Other waves will follow. Within a year, hundreds of you will be hunting and terrorizing everywhere on Earth. The domination of Homo Sapiens will end and, I ask you, what will replace it?"
"Tiger Nation," responded one of the creatures.
"Again. Louder. What will replace the human race?"
"TIGER NATION!" they all roared in voices too deep for normal throats to produce. "TIGER NATION!"
"That's right," said Baron Shogren. "Nothing can stop it at this point."
II.
The short slender form of Demrak Jin shot straight up fifteen feet out of the ocean like a missile fired from a submarine. She landed lightly on her feet, keeping her balance, glaring up and down the beach but finding no enemies on hand.
Jeremy Bane watched this without surprise. He had witnessed her exiting the water that way many times before. Dressed all in black as usual, slacks and turtleneck and jacket, the Dire Wolf stopped his restless pacing and went over to join her. "Feel better now?"
"Yes, captain. I needed that." The Gelydra woman stood several inches shorter than Bane's six foot height. Her short bristly white hair, surly dark blue eyes and a wide flat face made her appearance distinctive. Jin wore tight tunic and pants of grey sharkhide with the abrasive denticles on the outside. Strapped across her back was the sword she had crafted herself, a two foot long bone blade. "I am a sea creature, after all."
"I know," Bane said absently, gazing out at the horizon. "It was a long flight out here."
Demrak Jin studied his expression. Since Megan's death, he had become more subdued and impassive than usual. This had surprised her. She had expected the Dire Wolf to be furious, to be aching to go after the strange cult responsible for her demise. But now she realized he was hiding his feelings behind that unreadable poker face that had served him so well the first twenty years of his life.
Jin finally said, "I wish my Galvan could have come with us. We three could cut through any army."
"Yes." Bane straightened up and turned as if noticing her for the first time that day. "Sable has a good policy. She doesn't want you and Galvan out on a mission at the same time. If something happened to you both, it would leave your little boy an orphan."
"Captain.." she began before hesitating. This was so unusual for a person who was blunt past the point of rudeness that Bane wondered what was bothering her. "I know you are much faster than a normal Human. And you are a Master of Kumundu, perhaps THE Master after Teacher Chael himself. But I saw a four-legged tiger charge with my own eyes, two years ago in India, and I could not have fought it. Against these Tigermen, perhaps many of them, will you be outmatched?"
For the first time, an edge came into Bane's voice, "We'll find out."
"I did not mean to offend."
"It's okay, Jin. All of us have our emotions running close to the surface right now. Let's get going."
The Gelydra nodded and went over to drop down on the sand where she had left her boots. By this stage in her life, her feet had lengthened several inches beyond normal length and the webbing between her toes was evident. Her boots had to be specially made for her. "There. I am ready, captain, shall we leave now?"
"Okay." Bane swung around and headed for where the CORBY waited. The black stealthcopter had no identifying numbers or logos on its sleek sinister hull. When in flight, it displayed no lights and its Trom systems realigned any radar that might pick it up. The KDF copter might as well have been invisible. They had left the pilot and co-pilot hatches open because when those doors closed, they automatically locked and the alarms armed themselves.
Pulling the restraint straps down diagonally across his body, Bane said, "Monitors look good. All status lights green and blue. The impulse engines haven't had time to cool down yet."
"I don't see any reason why we can't take off now," added Jin.
The Dire Wolf closed his hand around the combined cyclic/collective stick between them. After the rotors got up to speed and they had risen ten feet up off the ground, he retracted the three landing wheels. "We think Shogren has a base somewhere in this afrea but there's a lot of territory to search. Hopefully we'll track down these Tigermen today."
"I can't wait!" the Gelydra spat with sudden intensity. "None of them will live to boast of our friend's death, I swear it!"
III.
Getting into the elevator, Lauren Sable Reilly buttoned the front flap of her Navy blue blazer and tugged the garment down where it had ridden up. "I don't know what we're going to do with the prisoner. We can't keep him here forever and it's a bad idea to turn him over to Department 21 Black. The FBI's special department doesn't need to learn how to combine tiger and Human DNA. They know too many Midnight War secrets as it is."
Standing next to her, Carlo Rivera held the Eyeless Helmet in the crook of his left arm. Although his clothes were casual, mundane white sneakers and jeans with a bright yellow longsleeved jersey, they were the gold and white emblem colors of the Sorcerer of Truth. The longer he used the helmet, the more somber and philosphical he became. "I think he is a problem that will solve itself."
She raised one eyebrow. "I hope you're right. You always seem to know more than you're telling. We'll discuss it with Jeremy after this campaign is over. To tell you the truth, I'm a little surprised he took this Tigerman alive to be questioned. I seriously expected him to, well, go on a vendetta and wipe them out."
"He is determined not to lose control of himself," Carlo said as they reached the eighth floor of the KDF headquarters building. His narrow face had become positively gaunt, with the cheekbones prominent under deepset eyes and he seemed older than his meager twenty-one years. "When we had our meeting last night, I could perceive it. These decades of Tel Shai study have not been in vain. Our captain has reached a better understanding of himself than what most people ever glimpse."
The elevator slid open to reveal a wide hall marked only by plain wooden doors lining both sides. Overhead fluorescent lights were more subdued here than in the rest of the headquarters. "Glad to hear that, Carlo. He and Megan were closer than he is to most of our team. And, considering the sort of violent life he lived as a young man, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Jeremy go completely ruthless because of her death."
She tapped a quick code into a keypad set beside the first room. The door slid to one side into a recess with a hiss to reveal a small vestibule with nothing it but another identical door. "Time to concentrate on our task at hand," she said.
Repeating the code in a second keypad, Sable opened the inner door to a cell twenty feet to a side, lit from above by lights behind tough plastic shields. The walls and floor were lined with a slightly spongy material, gleaming white. There was a hard sleeping mat on the floor with a built-in cylindrical pillow. There was a motion-controled toilet and sink. And whirling around to face them was their prisoner.
This Tigerman seemed normal enough, a man about forty, reasonably fit but not seriously athletic-looking in the white shirt and baggy white pants they had given him when taking his own clothes away. He had unremarkable dark hair and eyes, a face notable only for a rather flat-bridged nose and eyes a strange amber color.
"Well, aren't you brave to come in here?" he mocked. "Why aren't you training AR-15s on me? Or wearing riot gear?"
Sable remained calm. "Charles Robert Benton. Age forty-one, from Louisville, Kentucky. When you were brought in, we did the equivalent of an MRI on you and ran your prints. You have no criminal record. We want to know all you can tell us about Egil Shogren and what he plans."
Benton crouched forward, grinning wickedly at them. "You'll never make me talk!"
"You will want to talk," answered Carlo Ventura as he lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over his head. Faint shimmers played over the pale gold metal of that helmet as if reflecting searchlights from far away.
Instantly, Benton changed as his teeth lengthened into sharp fangs and his fingernails extended into claws. In the next tiny fraction of a second, he would launched himself across the cell to rip both Carlo and Sable apart but he did not have that second. The helmet flared up with gorgeous golden radiance that was warmer and more comforting than sunlight. Sound dropped away and eyesight was lost in the brilliance.
When the light faded immediately afterwards, Benton had dropped to his hands and knees, head hanging down. He had become fully Human again. When he tried to get up, his legs gave way and he fell heavily. "What did you DO to me?"
"The light of Elvedal brings truth and restoration," Carlo answered, raising the helmet Sagehelm to return it to the crook of his elbow. "It undoes malevolent spells and returns beings to their rightful state. There is no essence of tiger left in your body."
"You skinny little bastard. Even without the tiger, I can still beat you black and blue." With the last word, Benton vaulted forward again, fist drawn back up by his ear and ready to swing. With exact precision, Carlo Ventura extended his free hand so its palm slammed into his attacker's chest at an angle that deflected the man's momentum. Charles Benton crashed to the floor, coughing and struggling to catch his breath.
"You do not realize what it is you challenge," Carlo continued in the same even, unhurried tone. "Where is Baron Shogren now?"
"Last I knew, he was heading for his beach house in Northern California. Right up by the border with Oregon. Why did I say that? I don't have to tell you anything. It's maybe ten, twelve miles from the town of Sholton."
"Are his Tigermen with him?" asked Sable, just as calmly as her teammate had spoken.
"Almost all of them. After you freaks killed so many of us, the boss decided to disperse everyone sooner than expected. Wait. Stop. Did you inject me with truth serum or something? You got no right to do this to me."
Carlo seemed more sad than triumphant as he bent over and met the prisoner's confused stare. "You will not recognize these words but listen. The holy Halarin have graced you with their light which shines on Elvedal, where the immortal Eldarin live. You have been cleansed."
"I am, I can feel it, but what does it mean?. I don't... I don't understand what you just said but something has changed in me. I'll help. Shogren has some misguided idea about restoring the balance of nature by introducing predators to cut down the number of people in the world. We are those predators. We are all volunteers, we fell for his ideas and we thought we would be doing good!"
"Some of the worst deeds in history came from people who thought they were doing good," added Sable.
"Speak only truth. Have you killed anyone?" asked Carlo.
"No. I wanted to but I didn't have a chance. But I see now how wrong I was, the tiger essence made me think of hot blood and warm raw flesh all the time. How could I have been so foolish?" Benton managed to stand, he looked from Carlo to Sable and back again. "Are you the police? FBI? Am I under arrest?"
Lauren Sable Reilly tilted her head as she studied him. Her enhanced perception enabled her to count his heartbeats, smell the amount of adrenalin in his trace perspiration and gauge how his pupils dilated. She believed that the Eyeless Helmet had indeed freed this man and she saw he had welcomed it. "No, we're something you have never heard of, Benton. We serve justice, not the law. I think you should rest now. A tray of food will be brought up soon. Get some sleep if you can. You're not going to be executed or imprisoned."
"I could sleep for days," Benton admitted.
"Accepting Truth is always a struggle," said Carlo as he turned back toward the door.
IV.
Hovering the CORBY at ten thousand feet, Jeremy Bane studied the monitor which showed a telescopic view. The beach house was a split-level built one hundred yards from the shore, with a deck that ran completely around it. The nearest house was over a mile away and it was also a mile to the highway which an asphalt access road led to. Parked behind the beach house were five vehicles, four cars and an SUV. Turning up the Trom sensors further, the Dire Wolf got an image sharper than what even the best Human technology could provide.
Stepping out behind the house was a man in a white smock and two bigger men who moved to flank him in classic bodyguard stances. Positive ID came a second later with green letters on the screen, EGIL SHOGREN CONFIRMED.
Finally, Bane thought. It had been two weeks since Megan had died. Every day he could not track down Shogren had been intolerable but at last now he could nail the man responsible for these Tigermen. He switched the scanners to passive infra-red. In the chilly winter scene below, a crowd of shimmering heat sources could be seen moving about inside the house. Their signatures showed metabolisms higher than what Human bodies produced.
Bane's pale grey eyes grew colder rather than angry. His face did not show what he was feeling. When he spoke into the communicator, his voice was still restrained and unemotional. "Dire Wolf to base. Sable, we've found them. I'm sending you these images. Going to attack now, Dire Wolf out." He cut the contact before Sable could reply.
Before descending, Bane activated the weapons systems. He had never ordered the CORBYs to be heavily armed because he felt that once he started adding missiles or rockets, it would be hard to stop. He had wanted to keep the copters mostly intended for transport and exploration. On the heavy vanes to either side of the cockpit, panels slid open and the muzzles of twin 30mm chain guns slid out into position. The sole gleam of red appeared on his status lights, ARMED on the weapons dial.
Dropping down as quickly as if the CORBY was falling, the Dire Wolf reached treetop level and made a pass over the rear of the beach house. He pressed the button on top of the stick and fired two quick bursts that shredded the vehicles into bits of metal which spun away. Soaring up and wheeling around, he saw that one of the cars hadn't been completely destroyed but the front right wheel was completely gone. Good enough.
From every door, Tigermen rushed out. Their wild gestures and frantic running back and forth showed clearly hoew agitated and surprised they were. Bane could have simply cut them all down within a few seconds and then raked the house with chain gun fire but instead he shut down the weapons systems and glided past the house to touch down near the water's edge.
Even as the rotors slowed, the Dire Wolf vaulted down from the cabin and strode to over to put some distance between himself and the stealthcopter. He stood facing the beach house with his boots right on the edge of the water. Feet apart and legs braced, open hands down by his sides, Bane watched as a pack of twenty-four murderous Humans with tiger DNA charged across the beach at him.
Any outsider watching the scene would have been convinced that the lone figure in black would be torn to bloody scraps in the next few seconds. And yet...
The Tigermen slowed as they drew nearer. When they were barely out of arm's reach, they stopped advancing and spread out in a semi-circle. One abruptly cried out, "I don't smell any fear!"
"Why isn't he afraid?" yelled another one, flexing his talons eagerly. "Is this a trick? Is he holding a bomb or something?"
Bane had still made no move. He waited impassively as two score of the deadly creatures surrounded him. In the grey eyes, only cold determination showed.
"I don't like this. Someone get the Baron, see what he thinks," a Tigerman muttered.
"Oh, you want Baron Shogren?" asked the Dire Wolf quietly. A second later, a limp body was hurled up from behind the pack to land on the sand with an unsettling moist thump. The front of the white lab smock was slashed open and blood had gushed out, still red and wet. Even aside from the staring eyes, there was no doubt Egil Shogren was dead.
For the next three seconds, even these ferocious monsters were paralyzed by shock and surprise. They froze where they were, staring and gaping while the sight before them sank in. Before those seconds passed, Jeremy Bane whipped the matched silver daggers from his forearm sheaths and lashed into them with a whirlwind of razor-edged blades blurring in all directions. From behind the Tigermen, swinging her bone sword furiously, Demrak Jin began cutting them down. The creatures swung around trying to figure out how they were being attacked from two directions at once.
Fierce as the Tigermen were, swift and aggressive as they might be, they were facing two fighters who had faced monsters both bigger and more dangerous. Neither Bane nor Jin stayed still long enough to be seriously hurt, they knew from experience how to maneuver their enemies into getting in each others' way. Two against more than twenty, yet the Tigermen fell in such rapid succession they seemed to be struck down by some invisible force.
Less than thirty seconds had passed when the last of the creatures was thrown to the bloody sands with his head barely still attached to the neck. Much of Denrak Jin's sharkhide outfit had been yanked apart or slashed by claws and fangs. Her exposed pale skin was covered with gouges and scrapes, but she laughed out loud and whirled her sticky weapon overhead. "A daughter of Ulgor has walked among you this day! May Margoth burn your souls in his iron hands."
Bane was breathing heavily, something so rare for him as to show how much effort he had put into the slaughter. His black clothing also hung in strips and tatters to reveal the grey silk sheen of the flexible Trom Armor beneath. A long wound down his right cheek was
dripping and he swabbed the back of one hand to it gingerly.
Jin calmed down as the bloodlust subsided. "Human I am not and never was," she said. "That did me good. How are you, captain?"
"We did what had to be done," Bane replied as he bent over to clean his silver daggers on a dead Tigerman's shirt before sheathing them. "It won't bring Megan back, of course, but at least these creatures won't be spreading out across the world." He straightened up again and pointed past his teammate. "But I don't think we're done yet."
Demrak Jin spat on the sand and brandished the walrus-bone blade. "I don't see any threat. Let her get closer. Captain, your plan worked perfectly. While all eyes were on you and our helicopter, I was able to run up from the sea and come around behind that Shogren man. I guarantee he never felt me strike him down."
"Good," Bane replied absently. A young woman with curly black hair was walking slowly toward them. In her jeans and snug sweater, she was clearly not carrying any guns. Long decades of training and experience read her body language to help Bane decide this woman had no intention of attacking.
She raised both open hands, palms forward. "Easy. Easy. I guess there's no use trying to run for it. The two of you move faster than I ever could. I'm surrendering."
"Name?" Just the single word from Bane.
"Glynis, Glynis Winstead. I was the Baron's assistant. I handled his mail and bookkeeping, typed up his journal entries, all that."
The Dire Wolf was glaring at her suspiciously, saying nothing further for a long moment. "I don't sense any tiger essence in you. You don't move the way they do. But we need to do some scans. I don't dare let one of you escape."
"You'll find I'm two months pregnant," she said. "And the father was the first Tigerman. Baron Shogren thinks.. or thought.. that my child will be Tiger Nation, too. We were going to start breeding our kind as fast as possible."
"Easy enough to stop that right now," Demrak Jin growled as she stepped over a corpse toward the woman.
"Oh God, you wouldn't kill a pregnant woman?" Winstead yelped as she saw the ruthless smile on the Gelydra's face.
"Jin, stand down. Don't touch her, that's a direct order." Bane was scowling as he watched the woman. "I can't approve of either of us killing you. That's simply crossing one line too many. But then, I can't let you go either. And I don't want to turn you over to the authorities."
Still eyeing Winstead eagerly, swinging her sword back and forth, Demrak Jin said, "She IS a problem."
Bane finally exhaled wearily. "All right. Here's what we'll do. You're our prisoner, on our authority as Tel Shai knights. You'll be kept at one of our outposts until your baby is safely born. Then, I think we will relocate you to Okali. Think of it as a very distant land with no way back here. Okali is packed with different predators. You and your tiger child will be protected by some of the natives there until your child is big enough to survive."
"What? No. I want a lawyer. You have to hand me over to the police, I have rights."
The Dire Wolf shook his head. "You're not in the legal system now. You and other Tiger Nation people have already claimed at least a dozen innocent lives, and you intended to breed until you'd threaten the Human race worldwide. We're leaving you with your life, which is sure more than you'd do for us."
Winstead glanced over at Demrak Jin's bloodthirsty face, at the gruesome array of hacked up bodies all around her, then into the pale unforgiving eyes of the Dire Wolf. "I guess I don't have any choice, do I?"
"No," snapped Bane as anger escaped his self-control. "I only hope sparing you doesn't turn out to bite us in return. You tiger people may end up taking over Okali as the new apex predator."
4/16/2022
2/21/2022
I.
"In a way, we are helping Mankind," Baron Shogren told the twenty-four monsters assembled in front of his beach house. Arrayed in a loose semi-circle on the white sand, they looked at first to be an assortment of normal men, all in their thirties and forties, all wearing casual clothing. At the moment, their teeth were not fangs and their fingernails were not claws.
Shogren's harmless appearance was also deceptive. Even to a suspicious eye, he seemed to be an unremarkable Asian of medium height, with the full head of glossy hair and smooth skin of a young man. But he had looked like that for more than one hundred and forty years. The Baron retained a distinct Norweigian accent which provided an incongruous clash with his apparent ethnic background. Egil Shogren had been delving beyond the borders of rational scientific research for a long time.
Standing slightly behind him was a woman of college age, her long curly black hair falling down her back. She wore a white lab smock identical to hers. While Shogren was addressing his creations, she kept silent but a smug smile played around the corners of her mouth.
Facing his Tigermen, he continued, "Nature tries to provide a balance. When predators become too numerous, there aren't enough prey animals to support the numbers. When prey animals become too numerous, the food supply isn't sufficient to support the numbers. The balance is always restored but the human race has ruined that balance where it is concerned."
From the crowd, a sullen voice spoke up. "Get to the point, boss."
"Mankind has eliminated all the animals who would be its natural predators. The cave bears, the sabertooths, the terror birds have all vanished. Even tigers only survive in tiny numbers, unable to keep human populations down. Look at the results. The planet is staggering under the weight of billions of people. It's not a question of whether worldwide famine will kill the population of entire continents, it's a question of when!"
Short barking laughs sounded from several of the Tigermen. They could not keep themselves from shifting their weights from one foot to the other or pacing a few steps back and forth. One said, "Hah. But that doesn't take US into account, does it?"
"No, it does not." Baron Shogren folded his arms across his chest and smiled at his creations. "You twenty-four are only the first wave. When the Zhune artifact has had time to recharge, I will finalize your transformations and then you will be transported to widely scattered places all over the world. Other waves will follow. Within a year, hundreds of you will be hunting and terrorizing everywhere on Earth. The domination of Homo Sapiens will end and, I ask you, what will replace it?"
"Tiger Nation," responded one of the creatures.
"Again. Louder. What will replace the human race?"
"TIGER NATION!" they all roared in voices too deep for normal throats to produce. "TIGER NATION!"
"That's right," said Baron Shogren. "Nothing can stop it at this point."
II.
The short slender form of Demrak Jin shot straight up fifteen feet out of the ocean like a missile fired from a submarine. She landed lightly on her feet, keeping her balance, glaring up and down the beach but finding no enemies on hand.
Jeremy Bane watched this without surprise. He had witnessed her exiting the water that way many times before. Dressed all in black as usual, slacks and turtleneck and jacket, the Dire Wolf stopped his restless pacing and went over to join her. "Feel better now?"
"Yes, captain. I needed that." The Gelydra woman stood several inches shorter than Bane's six foot height. Her short bristly white hair, surly dark blue eyes and a wide flat face made her appearance distinctive. Jin wore tight tunic and pants of grey sharkhide with the abrasive denticles on the outside. Strapped across her back was the sword she had crafted herself, a two foot long bone blade. "I am a sea creature, after all."
"I know," Bane said absently, gazing out at the horizon. "It was a long flight out here."
Demrak Jin studied his expression. Since Megan's death, he had become more subdued and impassive than usual. This had surprised her. She had expected the Dire Wolf to be furious, to be aching to go after the strange cult responsible for her demise. But now she realized he was hiding his feelings behind that unreadable poker face that had served him so well the first twenty years of his life.
Jin finally said, "I wish my Galvan could have come with us. We three could cut through any army."
"Yes." Bane straightened up and turned as if noticing her for the first time that day. "Sable has a good policy. She doesn't want you and Galvan out on a mission at the same time. If something happened to you both, it would leave your little boy an orphan."
"Captain.." she began before hesitating. This was so unusual for a person who was blunt past the point of rudeness that Bane wondered what was bothering her. "I know you are much faster than a normal Human. And you are a Master of Kumundu, perhaps THE Master after Teacher Chael himself. But I saw a four-legged tiger charge with my own eyes, two years ago in India, and I could not have fought it. Against these Tigermen, perhaps many of them, will you be outmatched?"
For the first time, an edge came into Bane's voice, "We'll find out."
"I did not mean to offend."
"It's okay, Jin. All of us have our emotions running close to the surface right now. Let's get going."
The Gelydra nodded and went over to drop down on the sand where she had left her boots. By this stage in her life, her feet had lengthened several inches beyond normal length and the webbing between her toes was evident. Her boots had to be specially made for her. "There. I am ready, captain, shall we leave now?"
"Okay." Bane swung around and headed for where the CORBY waited. The black stealthcopter had no identifying numbers or logos on its sleek sinister hull. When in flight, it displayed no lights and its Trom systems realigned any radar that might pick it up. The KDF copter might as well have been invisible. They had left the pilot and co-pilot hatches open because when those doors closed, they automatically locked and the alarms armed themselves.
Pulling the restraint straps down diagonally across his body, Bane said, "Monitors look good. All status lights green and blue. The impulse engines haven't had time to cool down yet."
"I don't see any reason why we can't take off now," added Jin.
The Dire Wolf closed his hand around the combined cyclic/collective stick between them. After the rotors got up to speed and they had risen ten feet up off the ground, he retracted the three landing wheels. "We think Shogren has a base somewhere in this afrea but there's a lot of territory to search. Hopefully we'll track down these Tigermen today."
"I can't wait!" the Gelydra spat with sudden intensity. "None of them will live to boast of our friend's death, I swear it!"
III.
Getting into the elevator, Lauren Sable Reilly buttoned the front flap of her Navy blue blazer and tugged the garment down where it had ridden up. "I don't know what we're going to do with the prisoner. We can't keep him here forever and it's a bad idea to turn him over to Department 21 Black. The FBI's special department doesn't need to learn how to combine tiger and Human DNA. They know too many Midnight War secrets as it is."
Standing next to her, Carlo Rivera held the Eyeless Helmet in the crook of his left arm. Although his clothes were casual, mundane white sneakers and jeans with a bright yellow longsleeved jersey, they were the gold and white emblem colors of the Sorcerer of Truth. The longer he used the helmet, the more somber and philosphical he became. "I think he is a problem that will solve itself."
She raised one eyebrow. "I hope you're right. You always seem to know more than you're telling. We'll discuss it with Jeremy after this campaign is over. To tell you the truth, I'm a little surprised he took this Tigerman alive to be questioned. I seriously expected him to, well, go on a vendetta and wipe them out."
"He is determined not to lose control of himself," Carlo said as they reached the eighth floor of the KDF headquarters building. His narrow face had become positively gaunt, with the cheekbones prominent under deepset eyes and he seemed older than his meager twenty-one years. "When we had our meeting last night, I could perceive it. These decades of Tel Shai study have not been in vain. Our captain has reached a better understanding of himself than what most people ever glimpse."
The elevator slid open to reveal a wide hall marked only by plain wooden doors lining both sides. Overhead fluorescent lights were more subdued here than in the rest of the headquarters. "Glad to hear that, Carlo. He and Megan were closer than he is to most of our team. And, considering the sort of violent life he lived as a young man, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Jeremy go completely ruthless because of her death."
She tapped a quick code into a keypad set beside the first room. The door slid to one side into a recess with a hiss to reveal a small vestibule with nothing it but another identical door. "Time to concentrate on our task at hand," she said.
Repeating the code in a second keypad, Sable opened the inner door to a cell twenty feet to a side, lit from above by lights behind tough plastic shields. The walls and floor were lined with a slightly spongy material, gleaming white. There was a hard sleeping mat on the floor with a built-in cylindrical pillow. There was a motion-controled toilet and sink. And whirling around to face them was their prisoner.
This Tigerman seemed normal enough, a man about forty, reasonably fit but not seriously athletic-looking in the white shirt and baggy white pants they had given him when taking his own clothes away. He had unremarkable dark hair and eyes, a face notable only for a rather flat-bridged nose and eyes a strange amber color.
"Well, aren't you brave to come in here?" he mocked. "Why aren't you training AR-15s on me? Or wearing riot gear?"
Sable remained calm. "Charles Robert Benton. Age forty-one, from Louisville, Kentucky. When you were brought in, we did the equivalent of an MRI on you and ran your prints. You have no criminal record. We want to know all you can tell us about Egil Shogren and what he plans."
Benton crouched forward, grinning wickedly at them. "You'll never make me talk!"
"You will want to talk," answered Carlo Ventura as he lowered the Eyeless Helmet down over his head. Faint shimmers played over the pale gold metal of that helmet as if reflecting searchlights from far away.
Instantly, Benton changed as his teeth lengthened into sharp fangs and his fingernails extended into claws. In the next tiny fraction of a second, he would launched himself across the cell to rip both Carlo and Sable apart but he did not have that second. The helmet flared up with gorgeous golden radiance that was warmer and more comforting than sunlight. Sound dropped away and eyesight was lost in the brilliance.
When the light faded immediately afterwards, Benton had dropped to his hands and knees, head hanging down. He had become fully Human again. When he tried to get up, his legs gave way and he fell heavily. "What did you DO to me?"
"The light of Elvedal brings truth and restoration," Carlo answered, raising the helmet Sagehelm to return it to the crook of his elbow. "It undoes malevolent spells and returns beings to their rightful state. There is no essence of tiger left in your body."
"You skinny little bastard. Even without the tiger, I can still beat you black and blue." With the last word, Benton vaulted forward again, fist drawn back up by his ear and ready to swing. With exact precision, Carlo Ventura extended his free hand so its palm slammed into his attacker's chest at an angle that deflected the man's momentum. Charles Benton crashed to the floor, coughing and struggling to catch his breath.
"You do not realize what it is you challenge," Carlo continued in the same even, unhurried tone. "Where is Baron Shogren now?"
"Last I knew, he was heading for his beach house in Northern California. Right up by the border with Oregon. Why did I say that? I don't have to tell you anything. It's maybe ten, twelve miles from the town of Sholton."
"Are his Tigermen with him?" asked Sable, just as calmly as her teammate had spoken.
"Almost all of them. After you freaks killed so many of us, the boss decided to disperse everyone sooner than expected. Wait. Stop. Did you inject me with truth serum or something? You got no right to do this to me."
Carlo seemed more sad than triumphant as he bent over and met the prisoner's confused stare. "You will not recognize these words but listen. The holy Halarin have graced you with their light which shines on Elvedal, where the immortal Eldarin live. You have been cleansed."
"I am, I can feel it, but what does it mean?. I don't... I don't understand what you just said but something has changed in me. I'll help. Shogren has some misguided idea about restoring the balance of nature by introducing predators to cut down the number of people in the world. We are those predators. We are all volunteers, we fell for his ideas and we thought we would be doing good!"
"Some of the worst deeds in history came from people who thought they were doing good," added Sable.
"Speak only truth. Have you killed anyone?" asked Carlo.
"No. I wanted to but I didn't have a chance. But I see now how wrong I was, the tiger essence made me think of hot blood and warm raw flesh all the time. How could I have been so foolish?" Benton managed to stand, he looked from Carlo to Sable and back again. "Are you the police? FBI? Am I under arrest?"
Lauren Sable Reilly tilted her head as she studied him. Her enhanced perception enabled her to count his heartbeats, smell the amount of adrenalin in his trace perspiration and gauge how his pupils dilated. She believed that the Eyeless Helmet had indeed freed this man and she saw he had welcomed it. "No, we're something you have never heard of, Benton. We serve justice, not the law. I think you should rest now. A tray of food will be brought up soon. Get some sleep if you can. You're not going to be executed or imprisoned."
"I could sleep for days," Benton admitted.
"Accepting Truth is always a struggle," said Carlo as he turned back toward the door.
IV.
Hovering the CORBY at ten thousand feet, Jeremy Bane studied the monitor which showed a telescopic view. The beach house was a split-level built one hundred yards from the shore, with a deck that ran completely around it. The nearest house was over a mile away and it was also a mile to the highway which an asphalt access road led to. Parked behind the beach house were five vehicles, four cars and an SUV. Turning up the Trom sensors further, the Dire Wolf got an image sharper than what even the best Human technology could provide.
Stepping out behind the house was a man in a white smock and two bigger men who moved to flank him in classic bodyguard stances. Positive ID came a second later with green letters on the screen, EGIL SHOGREN CONFIRMED.
Finally, Bane thought. It had been two weeks since Megan had died. Every day he could not track down Shogren had been intolerable but at last now he could nail the man responsible for these Tigermen. He switched the scanners to passive infra-red. In the chilly winter scene below, a crowd of shimmering heat sources could be seen moving about inside the house. Their signatures showed metabolisms higher than what Human bodies produced.
Bane's pale grey eyes grew colder rather than angry. His face did not show what he was feeling. When he spoke into the communicator, his voice was still restrained and unemotional. "Dire Wolf to base. Sable, we've found them. I'm sending you these images. Going to attack now, Dire Wolf out." He cut the contact before Sable could reply.
Before descending, Bane activated the weapons systems. He had never ordered the CORBYs to be heavily armed because he felt that once he started adding missiles or rockets, it would be hard to stop. He had wanted to keep the copters mostly intended for transport and exploration. On the heavy vanes to either side of the cockpit, panels slid open and the muzzles of twin 30mm chain guns slid out into position. The sole gleam of red appeared on his status lights, ARMED on the weapons dial.
Dropping down as quickly as if the CORBY was falling, the Dire Wolf reached treetop level and made a pass over the rear of the beach house. He pressed the button on top of the stick and fired two quick bursts that shredded the vehicles into bits of metal which spun away. Soaring up and wheeling around, he saw that one of the cars hadn't been completely destroyed but the front right wheel was completely gone. Good enough.
From every door, Tigermen rushed out. Their wild gestures and frantic running back and forth showed clearly hoew agitated and surprised they were. Bane could have simply cut them all down within a few seconds and then raked the house with chain gun fire but instead he shut down the weapons systems and glided past the house to touch down near the water's edge.
Even as the rotors slowed, the Dire Wolf vaulted down from the cabin and strode to over to put some distance between himself and the stealthcopter. He stood facing the beach house with his boots right on the edge of the water. Feet apart and legs braced, open hands down by his sides, Bane watched as a pack of twenty-four murderous Humans with tiger DNA charged across the beach at him.
Any outsider watching the scene would have been convinced that the lone figure in black would be torn to bloody scraps in the next few seconds. And yet...
The Tigermen slowed as they drew nearer. When they were barely out of arm's reach, they stopped advancing and spread out in a semi-circle. One abruptly cried out, "I don't smell any fear!"
"Why isn't he afraid?" yelled another one, flexing his talons eagerly. "Is this a trick? Is he holding a bomb or something?"
Bane had still made no move. He waited impassively as two score of the deadly creatures surrounded him. In the grey eyes, only cold determination showed.
"I don't like this. Someone get the Baron, see what he thinks," a Tigerman muttered.
"Oh, you want Baron Shogren?" asked the Dire Wolf quietly. A second later, a limp body was hurled up from behind the pack to land on the sand with an unsettling moist thump. The front of the white lab smock was slashed open and blood had gushed out, still red and wet. Even aside from the staring eyes, there was no doubt Egil Shogren was dead.
For the next three seconds, even these ferocious monsters were paralyzed by shock and surprise. They froze where they were, staring and gaping while the sight before them sank in. Before those seconds passed, Jeremy Bane whipped the matched silver daggers from his forearm sheaths and lashed into them with a whirlwind of razor-edged blades blurring in all directions. From behind the Tigermen, swinging her bone sword furiously, Demrak Jin began cutting them down. The creatures swung around trying to figure out how they were being attacked from two directions at once.
Fierce as the Tigermen were, swift and aggressive as they might be, they were facing two fighters who had faced monsters both bigger and more dangerous. Neither Bane nor Jin stayed still long enough to be seriously hurt, they knew from experience how to maneuver their enemies into getting in each others' way. Two against more than twenty, yet the Tigermen fell in such rapid succession they seemed to be struck down by some invisible force.
Less than thirty seconds had passed when the last of the creatures was thrown to the bloody sands with his head barely still attached to the neck. Much of Denrak Jin's sharkhide outfit had been yanked apart or slashed by claws and fangs. Her exposed pale skin was covered with gouges and scrapes, but she laughed out loud and whirled her sticky weapon overhead. "A daughter of Ulgor has walked among you this day! May Margoth burn your souls in his iron hands."
Bane was breathing heavily, something so rare for him as to show how much effort he had put into the slaughter. His black clothing also hung in strips and tatters to reveal the grey silk sheen of the flexible Trom Armor beneath. A long wound down his right cheek was
dripping and he swabbed the back of one hand to it gingerly.
Jin calmed down as the bloodlust subsided. "Human I am not and never was," she said. "That did me good. How are you, captain?"
"We did what had to be done," Bane replied as he bent over to clean his silver daggers on a dead Tigerman's shirt before sheathing them. "It won't bring Megan back, of course, but at least these creatures won't be spreading out across the world." He straightened up again and pointed past his teammate. "But I don't think we're done yet."
Demrak Jin spat on the sand and brandished the walrus-bone blade. "I don't see any threat. Let her get closer. Captain, your plan worked perfectly. While all eyes were on you and our helicopter, I was able to run up from the sea and come around behind that Shogren man. I guarantee he never felt me strike him down."
"Good," Bane replied absently. A young woman with curly black hair was walking slowly toward them. In her jeans and snug sweater, she was clearly not carrying any guns. Long decades of training and experience read her body language to help Bane decide this woman had no intention of attacking.
She raised both open hands, palms forward. "Easy. Easy. I guess there's no use trying to run for it. The two of you move faster than I ever could. I'm surrendering."
"Name?" Just the single word from Bane.
"Glynis, Glynis Winstead. I was the Baron's assistant. I handled his mail and bookkeeping, typed up his journal entries, all that."
The Dire Wolf was glaring at her suspiciously, saying nothing further for a long moment. "I don't sense any tiger essence in you. You don't move the way they do. But we need to do some scans. I don't dare let one of you escape."
"You'll find I'm two months pregnant," she said. "And the father was the first Tigerman. Baron Shogren thinks.. or thought.. that my child will be Tiger Nation, too. We were going to start breeding our kind as fast as possible."
"Easy enough to stop that right now," Demrak Jin growled as she stepped over a corpse toward the woman.
"Oh God, you wouldn't kill a pregnant woman?" Winstead yelped as she saw the ruthless smile on the Gelydra's face.
"Jin, stand down. Don't touch her, that's a direct order." Bane was scowling as he watched the woman. "I can't approve of either of us killing you. That's simply crossing one line too many. But then, I can't let you go either. And I don't want to turn you over to the authorities."
Still eyeing Winstead eagerly, swinging her sword back and forth, Demrak Jin said, "She IS a problem."
Bane finally exhaled wearily. "All right. Here's what we'll do. You're our prisoner, on our authority as Tel Shai knights. You'll be kept at one of our outposts until your baby is safely born. Then, I think we will relocate you to Okali. Think of it as a very distant land with no way back here. Okali is packed with different predators. You and your tiger child will be protected by some of the natives there until your child is big enough to survive."
"What? No. I want a lawyer. You have to hand me over to the police, I have rights."
The Dire Wolf shook his head. "You're not in the legal system now. You and other Tiger Nation people have already claimed at least a dozen innocent lives, and you intended to breed until you'd threaten the Human race worldwide. We're leaving you with your life, which is sure more than you'd do for us."
Winstead glanced over at Demrak Jin's bloodthirsty face, at the gruesome array of hacked up bodies all around her, then into the pale unforgiving eyes of the Dire Wolf. "I guess I don't have any choice, do I?"
"No," snapped Bane as anger escaped his self-control. "I only hope sparing you doesn't turn out to bite us in return. You tiger people may end up taking over Okali as the new apex predator."
4/16/2022
