Cabin in the Woods (Cassius/Aaron/Kail/Hunt)

[qhostqrowls]

The truck tore up the narrow dirt path, and Kail only eased off the accelerator when the cabin came into view.

The rumble of the engine cut off abruptly, and Kail took one final drag from the cigarette as he slid out of his seat, slamming the door shut behind him. He flicked the butt to the ground, stamping it into the dirt with the toe of his heavy-duty hunting boot.

“Hunt!” He called out, and even through the thick log walls of the cabin, his voice could be heard. The wendigo stalked towards the porch, his gait lazy and unhurried. “You hungry?”

[jarahamee]

Simultaneously, the earpieces in Agent Telmore and Agent Lucidus’ ears crackled;

“He’s here. Should I hold position, or herd him towards the snipers?”

Agent Lucidus made a displeased sound. The cub wasn’t down and was still an active threat, and they were yet to take the cabin; their most defensible position.

If he did nothing, the wendigo would enter the cabin, giving the cub an exit, which might leave them empty-handed.

No.

He wouldn’t allow it.

Cassius kept both hands on the rifle, dropping to his knees as he picked up his door-jack, and placed it between the wall and the door, effectively wedging it closed. It would provide much-needed resistance when the wendigo tried to open it, and would buy them more time when necessary.

When he secured his place, he pressed the earpiece;

“Get him into position, do whatever you have to do.”

He replied to Agent Asher, Agent Cazadorscuro, and Agent Caro.

The werewolf, Agent Asher, had been watching his target from the brush. He looked over at the truck, parked in the driveway.

The wendigo had many potential escape routes, but the truck was one he could do something about.

Asher moved quicky to a position behind the vehicle, taking a moment, and his very sharp claws, to puncture the back left tire.

The noise was a surprisingly loud BANG from somewhere behind Kail.

Asher himself was nowhere to be found.

[beastly]

The manticore cub processed the arrival of the second human, and her attack on the human paused as the situation changed. She got a good whiff of him- he wasn't human. Kail had been clear, predator creatures were no supposed to be food. She could smell it, and see it in his face and stance. But he was not an ally, he was pointing a big gun at her. Invaders, a rival group? Working with the human?

"No! No easy!"

Should she run? Attack? She wasn't sure what was happening, the wolf was talking about something. She had a bad feeling-

The bang outside jolted her, and she snapped her jaws at the gun being pointed at her.

[MP]

Aaron made a snap decision. The cub wasn't even reeling, wasn't even slowing down, and he couldn't afford some 90 lbs of cub eating his leg when the wendigo showed up. The agent fired a second tranq at the cub's exposed shoulder, taking advantage of the moment she snapped at Cassius. Must be heavier than it looked, said a clinical side thought. Aaron ignored it as he retreated toward the wall, out of sight of the windows and in reaching distance of the door. If the cub could work the doors, he needed to stop her running out - or catch the wendigo off guard as he came in.

[qhostqrowls]

Kail was only a few paces from the porch when the tire exploded, and he whirled around to face the truck. His hand flitted to the sheath of his knife, blackened fingers tightening around the hilt. Even from a distance he could see the deflated tire, the way the truck sagged to that side. His expression settled into a scowl. Must've run over something sharp he hadn't cleaned up after fixing the roof.

But just as that thought crossed his mind, he caught onto a scent. The canine stink of a werewolf. The heady smell of a human. Both familiar, and curling through the air, up the porch, into the cabin.

In the split second of recognition, he heard Hunt yell, and for the first time in many months he felt a heart-stopping stab of fear.

In a blur of unnatural speed he was at the door, the thick wood shuddering as he barged a shoulder against it. There was something jamming it closed, and his skin shivered like he was about to shift. There wasn't time to force it open. They'd take her. They'd shoot her. She was only a child, but she was as much a killer as he was.

The window by the door shattered, thick shards of glass skittering across the floorboards. He shook the fragments from his sleeve, pressing his back against the wall. They'd have weapons, and he knew he'd be met with a bullet to the face if he tried to climb in, though he wanted nothing more than to lunge through the jagged edges of the window and tear them limb from limb.

"Hunt, out here!" He yelled, his voice hoarse in his panic. They weren't here by chance. Every second passed the snare was tightening. It might already be too late to run. He scanned the treeline for agents, expecting the crack of a gunshot at any second, the roar of an engine as more arrived.

[jarahamee]

Inside the cabin, Cassius made the conscious decision not to pull the trigger as the cub lunged and attacked the end of his rifle. His every instinct told him the shot would be perfect. She wouldn’t suffer, and he could move on to his secondary target. Eliminate all targets quickly and efficiently; preserve human life. But those were not his orders today.

Don’t shoot.

Instead, swiftly and reflexively, he released the rifle, the gun slinging into place on his shoulder. He shifted into the form of Beast. His transformations were rapid now; a combination of both his newfound ability now that he had shapeshifting gear, and the rapidly growing power of the Beast itself.

Where an armored man once stood, there was the black mass of a canid creature the size of a grizzly bear, blocking the door.

He lunged forward, aiming to use his forelegs to grasp the juvenile manticore and prevent her from running. Press her down, hold her neck to prevent her from biting and clawing him. Eventually, the drugs would work, and even if they didn’t, he could choke her until she went unconscious. He had done this to supers before.

And in that moment, he heard a shout from the other side, and glass shattered, raining down on him.

Cassius did not let go.

Outside the cabin, Kail ran to the front door and shattered the window.

As he stood against the door, he heard the faint sound of a gunshot nearby. The soft zip of silenced rifles. The sound was familiar to him from the many Hunters he had taken to an early grave. There was a THUNK as a bullet impacted the wooden wall next to him. The second gunshot he did not hear until a moment after the shockwave impacted his side.

The impact was like a hammer. The pain was like a nail being driven into him with it. He had been shot.

As he stood there, he saw the massive, blurred shape of something lunging for him, lurching on all four legs with incredible speed. The largest bear he had ever seen?

No, the unnerving fear effect was familiar. Very familiar.

It was a crinos werewolf, and it was going to tear into his flesh.

Kail felt the rush of air as he stepped back, barely avoiding the talons of the beast. He could smell it. The strong dog-like scent of its fur mixed with the musk of a wild animal.

It was a silvering grey and brown, mottled fur. Not the WDSA werewolf who had attacked him before. A different creature all together.

[beastly]

Hunt felt herself getting tired after the human man that was food used his gun again, and the dots lined up for the lion monstrosity. When the bad humans that had taken her had shot her, she'd felt very tired, and then they'd taken her here. They were trying to take her too!

The manticore yowled in displeasure as the big wolf grabbed her, pressing her into the floor of the cabin. She scrabbled against the floor, her claws catching on planks and scratching grooves into the wood.

"Let go! No!"

She bit into the floor, her jaws unhinging to a disturbing degree, and bit a chunk out of the floorboards. She broke the hole open in a strong swipe of her paw. Her head fit, and, being a cat, the rest of her soon followed into the dark dusty space under the cabin.

[MP]

Aaron saw something flash by the window and knew his time was up. The murmur through the comms told him that already. Shots fired. The wendigo was here, and the others had engaged. That meant two things. The target would fight or flee, and while his hunger might be dangerous, the wendigo wasn't stupid.

Aaron confirmed that Cassius had the cub in a proper grapple. Then he pushed out the door, pausing only to listen for the combatants' location. They'd closed with the wendigo. If the situation went against him, the creature would run, just like before. And with the elk form, Aaron wasn't sure even a werewolf would be able to stop it. He strode outside, stood in the doorway, though he let it swing closed in case the cub managed to slip Cassius' grip.

"Don't move," he shouted at the wendigo, willing a familiar voice to draw its attention. "You've got one chance to surrender - or do we want to lose both antlers this time?"

Aaron's voice carried, an uncharacteristic curl of grim humor in the threat. The creature was prideful, bloodthirsty, and it hated him. Aaron knew that from their last encounter, and he was banking on it.

[qhostqrowls]

Kail stumbled upright, blood dribbling between the fingers pressed hard against the bullet wound. If he’d ducked a second later, it would’ve been lodged in his skull and not his shoulder.

Maybe this was it, he thought, and suddenly felt the thrill of a long-dormant desperation. All the years he’d spent fighting tooth and nail against everyone and everything, scraping out a survival - all to be shot at his doorstep.

He drew his knife as the werewolf barrelled past, snarling low in his throat when it turned to face him. He’d kill this one if it was the last thing he did, tear the rest of its ugly face off and go out fighting.

The voice and the scent behind him was a familiar one, and his focus snapped immediately to Telmore.

There was a half second, as he stared at the man, that it almost seemed like he was considering it.

And then his features twisted into a monstrous, inhuman expression of rage - of a hatred he’d nursed ever since the night they’d met, and he lunged for Aaron with a hoarse shout. All he needed was a second. One stab, one bite, and it would all be over for the man who shouldn’t have survived their first fight.

[jarahamee]

Within the cabin, the manticore cub clawed and bit her way through the floor, dragging her body down and under. The scarred werewolf went with her. He felt his claws slipping off her muscular body as it writhed and wound around like a cat wiggling to get out of its owners arms; all sharp claws and sinew.

It was when his upper body started to slither after her that he realized the space she had made was too small for the both entwined.

He lost his grip on all but a back leg as she forced herself under the house; a more defensible position. From here, all four of her legs planted on the ground, dragging the rest of him down with her.

The position was awkward; a juvenile lion was smaller than a bear, and his long limbs compressed uncomfortably beneath the house. He struggled, lunging forward to regain the grip on her neck, but instead, slipped off and onto her shoulder, in dangerous proximity to her fanged mouth.

His grip was off, but he’d have another chance. There was only so far the cub could run here.

Outside, Telmore confronted the wendigo, stopping it in its tracks. This move came with consequences; the snipers, who would normally have fired through Asher’s body to hit Kail, could not expect the same resilience from an ordinary human. They would have to hold their fire.

The werewolf lunged again, swiping at Kail’s body with its powerful forearms, and the hammer force of its massive jaws. Flecks of foam mixed with blood slipped down its teeth and jaws, eyes wide with mania and unyielding rage.

Even Telmore could feel the strange effects of its magic on his body. The unnatural fear at witnessing the horror.

[beastly]

Hunt growled as she tried to wiggle her way deeper under the house, claws digging into dirt and wood. The big thing that was not a wolf or a human was still trying to hold her, and she was starting to get tired. She didn't want to be taken away though! And from what she could hear outside, the food was trying to fight Kail too. Kail was very strong, the manticore knew that, but she heard the sound of something else too. It was hard to focus as the whatever it was pulled at her shoulder and leg.

"Going to open your belly! Eat your liver! Then heart!"

Hunt writhed, turning and squirming to slice at Cassius with her claws and tail as only something feline could. It was a small space, and she was a liquid, but these were not ideal fighting conditions. She wished her venom was strong and powerful like her father's. Then, she would only have to stab him once.

"Leggo!"

[MP]

Aaron had anticipated an attack, but he'd forgotten just how fast a wendigo could cover ground. The agent's retreat became a hasty backward stumble, the wendigo's claws tracing a shallow line down his cheek. Aaron flinched back, knowing that even here, even with multiple senior agents on site, a fall would mean death. He couldn't afford to slip, or to close with the wendigo. He had to keep the wendigo busy.

He activated his spell shield, buying him precious room between his face and those claws - giving the wendigo a tantalizing look of the agent hunkered behind a flimsy, translucent barrier. Aaron's focus was written clear in his features, tinged with instinctual, very real recognition - fear - of humanity's natural predator. He couldn't outrun the wendigo, and going on the offensive might remind the creature of its own precarious situation. So Aaron settled for a cautious backward shuffle, shield up, eyeing the wendigo for another lunge.

[qhostqrowls]

Kail lunged mindlessly for the agent, claws scraping over the shimmering barrier. He snarled, their gazes locked, his expression wild and enraged and absent of any last traces of humanity.

It was all because of him. This one human agent. With another wordless shout he shoulder barged the barrier hard enough it shuddered, but when the spell held and he felt the werewolf’s lunge miss by an inch, he knew he wasn’t getting what he wanted. Not like this. He still needed to get Hunt.

His form twisted, antlers branching, limbs lengthening, and the monster-elk whirled to lunge savagely at the werewolf.

His jaws snapped shut around its ruff, and he shook as hard as he could, trying to tear and rip its flesh. His clawed hand grasped at its haunch to try and push it on its side where he could get at the softer underbelly, the throat. It was smaller than him. If he couldn’t kill Telmore he’d kill his friend in front of him.

He kicked a leg back at the cabin, hoping he’d hit the agent’s shield. His hoof missed by an inch, and instead hit the wood paneling of the porch hard enough to break the boards. Light spilled onto Hunt, and there was suddenly a narrow, jagged opening out of the tiny crawl space.

[jarahamee]

Asher turned just as he was seized by the wendigo’s jaws. While he was lesser in weight and bulk than the wendigo’s beast form, he was still a ten foot tall hunched mass of muscle and bone, and killing him would not be that easy; the teeth buried in the loose skin of his ruff, and the werewolf turned the other way, twisting as the wendigo pulled him.

While the bite had sunk deep, Kail came away with a thick wad of hair, bitter blood and a small patch of skin. The flesh and fur was thick enough in this area there was no sign of his bite from the outside, at least visually, but he knew it was there.

The werewolf lunged to attack the wendigo’s foreleg. To shred it to bits. A three-legged ungulate didn’t go far; any wolf would know this. His jaws clacked on air as his opponent shifted. The teeth grazed his leg. He’d need another approach. The belly. No ungulate could live without its intestines either.

As the two beasts fought, another order became clear.

The wendigo near doubling in height gave the snipers a clear shot at its head and heart, without the risk of hitting Telmore.

The first shot by Agent Caro went wide, but the second, by Cazadorscuro, struck deep and solid. Large caliber, powerful, with the kind of stopping power that Captain Lucidus felt would be required to euthanize such a large super.

Under the house, Hunt squirmed, wriggling away from the pursuing werewolf.

His grip slipped off her hind legs, and he corrected by grasping the end of her tail, both to protect himself from being stung in the face, and to prevent the young manticore from escaping them entirely. The scarred werewolf felt his gear catching on the top of the crawl space. There wasn’t much time, but the cub was weakening.

They would have her soon.

Then, somehow, their enemy stamped the floorboards. Serendipitous for the cub? Perhaps. It was so tired, he had the feeling that perhaps none of this would matter.

[beastly]

Hunt made a distinctly feline yowl as her tail was pulled.

"LEGGO!"

The manticore cub snarled and turned to bite and break the grip the canine monster had on her, three rows of teeth flashing. If he wanted to hold her like that, she would gladly remove his hand for him. If he had no hand, he could not grab. She ended up eating most of her problems.