R.E.D. Tiger Ch. 02

So far everything was going according to plan. I'd purposely let Rodrigo know that if they wanted to get to Molina they would have to come through me, then I threatened to kill a few of them so that I could be seen as a threat. If I was seen as a threat then they wouldn't be violating any codes by trying to eliminate me. Lastly I told him where I would be tonight to entice him to try and get rid of me. There were a lot of alleyways where I was going so I hoped he'd try to attack me. I'd kill him and then I'd be at war with the whole pack. That should keep them of Tracy's and Molina's tails (no pun intended) for a little while. Well at least long enough for me to wipe out the whole pack. All that was left to do now was see if they took the bait.

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I got back home around seven and saw a message from Rose that said she would be staying at Aki and Jan's apartment tonight which was good. If the lycans were watching the house then I didn't want them to see Rose. I assumed this was going to turn into an ugly war and I knew it would get way worse(for them)if they did anything to her.

I stretched out on my bed for about two hours before getting up to shower. For a change I decided to use the master bathroom for once. All of my dad's stuff was still in the master bedroom because both me and Rose refused to move in there but maybe with all that's been going on it was a good time to do just that.

After a shower I headed downstairs and made a chicken sandwich with last night's leftovers. After eating I changed into an orange polo shirt and a pair of blue jeans, put on my sneakers and then left.

I walked outside and saw a van parked down the street. I decided to walk to the bar in the hopes of making myself look like an easy target. Hopefully they'd just think I planned on getting drunk and instead of driving I just decided to hoof it.

I had made it about three blocks before felt the tails following me. From what I could tell there where three of them, possibly the same three from the funeral but I couldn't be sure. After a while the other two tails dropped back and the main one kept drawing closer. It looked like he was looking for a chance to jump me so I gave him an opening. I pulled out my wallet from my pocket and pretended to drop it and when I reached to pick it up I "accidentally" kicked it into the nearest alley. Cursing loudly I walked into the alley to pick up my wallet. I could feel two of the tails leave, I guess they assumed that from here the main guy could take it and they no longer needed to watch.

This put a serious damper on my plans. If I only killed one of them the rest might not find out until tomorrow or the next day but three missing werewolves definitely warranted an investigation. In about thirty seconds the lycan had entered the alley and I was surprised to see that it wasn't Rodrigo but another male wolf. This didn't really harm my plans but I just really wanted to kill that bastard.

This werewolf seemed to be pretty strong, he was tall around 6'5" and with my enhanced vision I could see he had huge muscles as well. He was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans and to anyone who saw him he'd look just like a regular guy. He wouldn't stick out in anyone's memory as being suspicious.

It seemed that this wolf unlike Rodrigo wasn't much for chitchat because all he did was let out a low growl and then charge me. Shit at least dictators and insurgents let you know why you were getting killed before they attacked you. He was just coming right at me.

As he rushed towards me for some reason I begin to think about the disparity between the movie industry and real life as it pertained to werewolves and vampires. Most people were under the assumption that werewolves were stronger than vampires but vampires were faster than werewolves. It was a solid theory with wolves being stronger then bats but bats being able to cover more distance in less time than wolves.

In real life however it was completely opposite. In actuality lycans were faster than vampires but not stronger than them. It wasn't a big enough difference to really matter though. If you had to give them a grade it would be sort of like this: a werewolf's speed would be a ninety-seven while it strength would be a ninety-two and the inverse would be true for vampires. On a full moon however a werewolf's speed could balloon up to an one-hundred and their strength would go up to match a vampires at ninety-seven. Vampires on the other hand got stronger as they aged so a one thousand year old vampire's speed and strength could easily surpass one hundred.

All that being said this werewolf was surprisingly slow, almost pathetically slow. Even before I became the host I was sure I could move faster than he was right now. He had partially transformed bringing out his claws and a little hair was starting to grow on his exposed arms.

Once he reached me he swung wildly at me and I easily ducked the two swipes. It was really funny to me. Six months ago he would have had all the tools to kill me without the skill to use them and I would have had all the skill to kill him but not one tool that could. But that was six months ago and times had changed. The lycan wound up to deliver a huge blow but struck air as the spot where I was standing less then a second ago was suddenly empty.

Bringing out claws of my own I slashed him in his back shredding his shirt to pieces. I had tinged my claws with a little ice magic to stop him from bleeding out everywhere and to cause additional pain. The lycan stumbled forward in pain clawing at it's back trying to reach the ice shrapnel stuck in his wounds. After finally giving up he turned around and lunged at me again. Once again I dodged and this time I sliced the back of both of his legs.

He hit the floor howling in pain as he lost feeling in his legs. At this point I doubted if he could even stand let alone fight. To my astonishment he rose once again and made another lunge at me. I could tell that the fight was pretty much over so I decided to put the poor thing out of his misery. I rushed towards the lycan as he came towards me, while running I changed the magic in my claws to electricity and they cackled as I moved. Reaching each other the lycan made a thrust with his arm, I ducked under it and then thrust my own hand towards his chest. My claws went right into his chest piercing his heart and the electricity sent him into a heart attack at the same time as it killed him.

The lycan slumped over dead and I used the vestiges of his shirt to wipe the blood of off my hand. I looked down at the dead body as it slowly morphed back into a human form. In order to not leave any evidence I conjured up a small ball of fire and fed it down the corpse's mouth. The fire would incinerate the body from the inside out and wouldn't leave a trace behind. I enveloped the body in an air cocoon to keep the smell from getting out.As I looked down at the body an idea formed into my head. Drawing in a deep breath I released and yelled "KAAA" using a little wind magic to make it louder then normal.

I figured that having them send only one lycan might be a blessing in disguise. If I killed three lycans then the others would definitely know something was up and possibly call in back up from other packs. With one victim however the lycans would check into my history and see I was in the military. People close to the scene would remember hearing a gunshot because of the sound I just made. Hopefully the other lycans would think that after i got attacked I managed to get off a lucky shot, in which I killed their comrade and was able to use my military training to get rid of the body. This would allow me a couple of more days to plan and on top of that the element of surprise would be on my side.

I looked down at the spot where the corpse just was and found nothing. Using a little water magic I cleaned the rest of the bloodstains off my hand and pulled some sanitizer out of my pocket to disinfect with. Taking one last look back into the alley where my first supernatural showdown took place I took a deep breath and made my way to Kanawha Blvd. There was still a beer there with my name on it.

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Sitting inside the bar it finally came back to me why I hated places like these so much. Even before I had super senses I found bars to be to noisy and crowded for my taste, now with my increased hearing it was near torture for me to be here. Most people think that the quietest places in a club are the corners and walls but the vibrations from the music reverberate there the loudest for me. So I decided to sit at the bar and drink a couple of beers then leave and head home.

As I sat at the bar nursing my drink I thought about old times. When I first turned twenty one two years ago Don and Marcy drug me to the nearest bar and bought me my first ever drink. I always had the fantasy that my dad would by my first drink. Kind of a father-son tradition we could start. While I did miss out on that Don and Marcy still made my twenty first birthday great. Well as great as it can be in a town occupied with people who wanted you dead.

Marcy and Don were some of the first people I met when I joined the army. We met in basic all three of us and even though they were both older then me we all got along great.

It started with Marcy. She was already twenty three and after a couple years of college and flip flopping between majors she decided school wasn't for her. When she saw me a tall somewhat built kid or sixteen in the ranks with her she couldn't help but ask what I was doing there. I told her the whole story of how my father died and the strained relationship between me and my step mom.

After that Marcy sort of took me under her wing so to speak. She acted like my big sister and stood up for me when some of the older guys tried to bully and intimidate me. It was nice to finally have an older sibling. Me being the oldest out of Me, Rose,and Angela I was never sure if I was doing a good job being an older sibling. I found out that just being there to listen at times was a big help to younger siblings and made a vow to always be there for Rose and Angela's big events like graduations and awards.

We met Donald Watson aka Don at Fort Jackson. He was maybe a year or two older then Marcy and had also joined the service when he was sixteen like me. He had ran away from home after his mom died and his father turned abusive. Since he and I were in similar situations he took to checking up on me every once in a while.

I don't know when Don and Marcy started dating but I could tell something was up between the two of them. They'd never come out and say it, and I'm not sure if they even could, but I could tell that our trio relationship had sort of changed. I don't know why the were keeping it from me, we basically told each other everything.

After about a month of them skirting the subject around me I finally decided to ask them what was up. One night when Don and I were out I just came out and asked him. We were sitting at a bar kind of like this one but it was more of a sports bar than a club bar.

"So Donald,"I said to him," what are your intentions with my older sister?" His reaction was hilarious. He nearly choked to death right there on his own beer. It would have looked funny in the paper the next morning. "Soldier Chokes to Death on Budweiser". After he calmed down he asked me what I was talking about and I explained to him that I knew something was up between the two of them. He finally confessed that they had started kind of seeing each other about a month or two back.

"Why didn't you two say anything to me? I mean I could understand not telling anyone else, but why not tell me? You guys know there's no secrets between us."

"I wanted to tell you but Marcy was worried. She knew that you looked up to her and she was worried that you may have developed some type of romantic feelings for her. She just didn't want to hurt you."

"Hahahahaha. Oh shit give me a second here....so what she was never going to tell me. Me have romantic feelings for her, that's like me having feelings for Rose or Angela. Never gonna happen." I laughed to myself thinking about how I did now sort of have feelings for Rose.

"I know right ridiculous."Don said laughing with me. After that Don and Marcy were a little bit more open with each other when it was the three of us. When all three of us would go out they never made me feel like a third wheel. Sometimes I knew that they wanted to be alone so I would decline offers to go out with them.

In a blink of an eye five years had passed. I was twenty one and my first consignment was over. Marcy and Don both wanted me to hang it up and go live a normal life but they both had three years left and I didn't want them to go in it alone. So much to their collective dismay I signed up for another five years.

It was all for naught though. Within my first year back I was transferred to a different unit all together. I was now part of a thirteen man squad dubbed Sector Thirteen. We were more of a covert op team than a ground force. Before joining the thirteens my call sign was AT&T because my name was Alan Thomas Thorton and because everyone one said I was small and compact like a cellphone.

In the thirteens however we did much more hand to hand combat and I got to use some of the martial arts my dad had taught me as a kid. My fellow members said that I was like some type of rare animal, strong and ferocious, like an endangered species. They said that I was still to small to be considered a polar bear or something so my call name was changed to "Tiger".

It was another two years before I saw Marcy and Don. An officer needed a member of the thirteens for a job that required some intel extraction in very hostile territory. Seeing as how it was my old unit I was elected to go. It was one of the greatest days of my life when I was introduced as the commanding officer of my old squad for that mission. Most of the people I'd started with were now gone but I could see Don and Marcy standing in the ranks with there mouths agape.

That first night back we went out for drinks and everything was just like old times, except that I made Don repeatedly address me as sir for the hell of it. The two of them only had a couple more months before they were through and planned to both retire for good. Marcy's clock had went off and she desperately wanted a child and Don was ready to marry her and settle down. I congratulated the both of them by ordering some more rounds and we had a great time.

Sadly both of them died in the upcoming mission. I was proud to know that at least they had died for a worthy cause protecting their country. That feeling however changed when I overheard two of the hostiles talking.

I had infiltrated the enemy camp and was close to retrieving the classified intel when I heard two of the guards talking. One of the guards was wondering why security was so lax, something that had been on my mind as well. I pulled out my recorded in hopes that I could find out something important such as that they were really spread thin because they were preparing for a major offensive or a big mission elsewhere but what I heard was the other soldier telling him that all of this was for show.

He explained to the stunned officer that the man who had commissioned my mission was planning on betraying the U.S. government. He would have me still the classified info and then he would falsify a report to his higher ups. He would then sell the real information to a high ranking officer in the enemy's military and they would both become amazingly rich and successful. Both receiving promotions and accolades for their "hard work".

I was to stunned to even think at that moment. Waiters had not only betrayed us but that meant Marcy, Don, and a slew of other operatives died for the sake of one man's greed. I was glad that I had the whole thing on tape because I knew no one would've believed me otherwise. Still I was so furious I couldn't think straight.

After receiving the intel I quickly made my way back to base camp. Without saying a word to anyone I made my way to Waiters' quarters. Luckily for Waiters a couple people had followed me to get my mission report and they arrived just in time to stop me from jamming my knife in his throat. I was hauled off to some cells and was brought up on charges for treason and attacking a superior officer.

The people on hand soon found out that since I was in the thirteens they had no jurisdiction over me. I was still sitting in my cell when the leader of the thirteens came to visit me. He asked why I had did what I did and I played the recording of what I'd learned back to him. He took the recording and went to go see some people.

I sat in that cell for two more days before I was released. There was both good and bad news. The good was that Waiters had been decommissioned and was being brought up on charges of treason among other things pending an investigation. The bad was that too many people had heard the story of me attacking Waiters most of them weren't important enough to be told the truth of what happened and the military couldn't be seen as condoning attacks against superior officers no matter the circumstance, rightfully I should have just reported my findings and let them take care of the situation. My fellow crew mates tried to explain that I was angry and wasn't thinking straight but it was to no avail and I was booted out into the streets. The only other good news was that it wouldn't go down in my record as a dishonorable discharge and tarnish my career.

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Remembering the past had always made me zone out so I was surprised that when I finally came back to the present that a good three hours had passed while I was sitting there brooding. I looked up and noticed that a woman across the room was staring at me intently. I stretched out my senses and finding nothing off with her I made eye contact with her.

When I made eye contact with her she smiled at me and started walking my way. This woman really was a knockout. She was tall and slender with pale skin. She already had me at a disadvantage because she was a redhead with green eyes, which I had always been attracted to. Seeing her walk in it self was a sight to behold. She worked through the crowd easily and had the most sensual walk I had ever seen. I always thought that Gina was beauty personified and this woman must have been sex in human form.

I trailed of briefly to think about the possibility of sex being personified, with all that I'd learned recently I thought that maybe she really was a incarnate of sex, one of those succubus' or whatever they're called.

She made her way to the bar and sat next to me to order a drink. She didn't say anything to me until her drink arrived. When the drink arrived she took a sip and then turned to me.

"You know,"she said,"I've been watching you for a while now and I'm glad you finally noticed me. You seemed to be thinking about something and I didn't want to interrupt but I was close to just coming over anyway."

"Well I'm glad to have caught the attention of someone as beautiful as yourself Miss–,"

"Vasquez. Demetria Vasquez but you can just call me Demi." she said, but from her tone I could tell she didn't like the name Demi much.

"Nice to meet you Demetria. I'm Alan. So what do I owe the honor Ms. Vasquez?"

She took a deep breathe before leaning in to me and starting to talk in a low voice.

"To be blunt I'm in town for business and today that business concluded and I was hoping to pick up somebody for some fun before heading back to my home in Spain. To be quite honest all the men in here seem to be piggish and unsophisticated except you. It's really getting late and I would appreciate it if you'd accompany me back to my hotel." She stated simply and then sat back and waited for a reply.