beati bellicosi
The gate was up and they were in motion. Lupa sprung forward, instincts roiling within her. Threat, attack, hunt. There was a blur of motion by her side, quickly passing her, death making swift and silent tracks towards the exit. Predators, her animal mind said, allies, for now. There was an alpha behind her, raising her hackles. She wanted to turn, to snap at him, but the threat was ahead, and the ancient marvel of evolution would not wait for her. She would have to prove her place in the melee.
She lunged, claws and predator-brain tearing an efficient course through the too-slow men. Around her the foreign ally-pack formed an efficient, brutal team; darting strikes and efficient takedowns. Blood spilled, Lupa could taste the scene of it hanging heavy in the air. One of the prey-creatures had finally gotten a clue, long-range weapon that she knew would spout fire and death raised, pointed towards bluegreen-nostripe-Delta. Lupa leapt, claws seizing around the man’s neck, digging into his flesh, throat spilling onto the ground. And then Lupa stilled. BetaBlue was there, had come to her second’s defence mere moments after Lupa herself. The fellow predator regarded her, blood staining her muzzle, lip twitching to reveal chunks of flesh trapped between vicious teeth. Lupa growled, sound vibrating through her chest, her own fangs bared. It was BetaBlue who moved first, bobbing her head in recognition. Lupa grinned, a feral expression no less frightening than her snarl. Her ally disappeared, moving almost too quickly for the wolf brain to track. The whole exchange took barely a second, yet both females knew an understanding had been reached.
Shots rang out, shattering Lupa’s moment of distraction. Something grazed her thigh, her bicep– rage filled her, rose within, surged and exploded as violent intent. She took off with a snarl. They were raining fire upon the pack from above. Lupa leapt, catching a hold of metal scaffolding, throwing herself onto the catwalk. The Alpha was already here, armed with a death weapon of his own. Lupa’s instincts snarled conflicting things– Alpha: submit, not my alpha: fight, strong predator: suitable mate. She didn’t think, tearing through the assembled enemies, crouched low, lashing out with jaws and claw. The Alpha was by her side, distracted from the fight, watching her out of the corner of his eyes. When all the men were dead she turned to him and snarled, he grinned back, unafraid. She could smell his emotions: anger at the invaders, fear for his pack, lust for her. Lupa’s instincts prickled, surging. But now wasn’t the time, she threw her body over the railing, landing easily, slipping into the ally-pack’s formation without thought. She was equal with BetaBlue, knew that the other female was acknowledging her, respecting her, following her own instincts that told her the other predator was like Alpha. Lupa was too focused to consider it now, what that meant. Somewhing whirred above them, keeping pace. It took longer than it should have for her to recognise the empty-metal-packassist. Green-blackstripes-Charlie goes to lung at it, Lupa leaps easily into the lesser female, knocking their shoulders together, meeting the other predator’s ferocious hiss with a growl of her own. BetaBlue snaps at her, teeth shearing the air. Gunfire roars, empty-metal-packassist taking the brunt of the attack, shielding the pack. Grey-whitebluestripe-BetaBlue hangs her head, refusing to meet Lupa’s eyes. She will trust the other female’s judgement.
The prey is fleeing now, invaders taking to their vehicles, trying to get out through the jungle. It is a mistake. The pack moves as one; crashing through windscreens, ripping off doors, empty-metal-packassist overturning vehicles where needed, always where necessary to protect the predators from harm. Good, Lupa feels a savage joy as she lopes through the jungle, keeping pace with the fleeing prey-humans. She darts close to the lead vehicle, BetaBlue hanging back slightly, positioning herself just to the right of Lupa. Her animal brain knows what that means, but she doesn’t have time to truly register it, instead leaping onto the moving vehicle, separating door from hinge.
One of the men inside is yelling into a phone, words a struggle for Lupa to understand. She hears enough.
“–fucking mutant–”. No , no, no! She lashes out, cutting him off, fanged jaws closing around his throat, severing his vocal chords along with his jugular. Blue’s leapt onto the vehicle too now, taking the head off the other man, who’d lunged at Lupa with a knife. They leap from the vehicle, hitting the ground running. All the invaders are dead, Lupa knows this without knowing how. Instinct drives them back to the pack’s nest, their den. Lupa arrives seconds after the other females, fear that has nothing to do with the hunt stewing within her, distracting her. The Alpha is there, approaching his girls without fear. Lupa bares her teeth and slinks off. Her instincts want her to jump the alpha, press him into the dirt ground right here, trap him beneath her. He is strong, he would fight. Lupa isn’t sure whether the fight would be in the lead up to mating or for their lives so she stays where she is.
The empty-metal-packassist lands in front of her, severely wounded. It speaks with a voice that hurts her head. She retreats, shaking her head as if to dispel some entity that had taken root there, that was growing, fighting Lupa. Lupa backed right in to Alpha. The man blinked, looking up from where he was scratching the throat of brown-scarredbluestripes-defeatedEcho. She sat beside him, leaning her aching head against his muscular shoulders. He carried on as if he didn’t notice. BetaBlue met Lupa’s eyes with a knowing look, Lupa bared her teeth.
Darcy woke up to find her head on Owen’s thigh, the man’s fingers tangled in her hair; the animal within her was relaxed under his touch, purring with contentment. She felt her face flame red, itchy from streaks of dried blood. She pushed herself into a sitting position, noting that they were on the bare dirt, surrounded by dozing Velociraptors. Oh well, she decided, it wasn’t the worst position to come back to herself in, certainly not the most embarrassing.
“Uh” She didn’t know what to say, Darcy– motormouth extreme, didn’t know what to say. But Owen just laughed, getting to his feet.
“The iron man drone says Stark’ll be here in 15 minutes, put the man himself through earlier but I don’t think you knew what words were just then. Care to tell me about it while I rinse the blood off the girls?” He jerked his thumb at the four Velociraptors, tactfully not mentioning the blood that must be covering her. She was grateful.
“Sure” Darcy said, trailing the man as he rounded the pen, content to follow his lead. It was nice that he understood, just accepted her, covered in the evidence of however-many murders she’d just committed, without hesitation. Then again, he commanded a pack of genetically engineered Velociraptors, he was probably used to weird.