Werewolf's Next Night Out

Michael pressed his lips to hers. Charlotte opened her mouth slightly to admit his tongue, and moved her hands from his shoulders to his back, grabbing at the fabric of his tee-shirt. Manoeuvring on the huge, fluffy, couch, he rolled both of their bodies so that he was on top of her and snaked his hand up under her sweater, caressing her breast over the top of her bra. The fire crackled in the grate, casting flickering light over both of them.

His parents were both at a charity gala or some gay bullshit, and the maid and butler both had the evening off, so the teens had the whole house to themselves. It was why Michael had invited the girl over in the first place. As quarterback of the football team and coming from a wealthy family he more-or-less had his pick of the cheerleaders, and exercised this privilege freely. Currently Charlotte, the busty brunette from a family almost as wealthy as his, was his girlfriend, having moved up from being a 'side-piece' when he was still with Rebecca. Michael had to admit that he felt a definite spark with her that he hadn't with any of the other girls he'd been with, and he'd been seriously considering letting her in on his secret. After all, what was the good of being a super-villain if you couldn't use it to impress chicks?

Charlotte grabbed hold of the hem of his shirt and yanked it up, he disentangled himself from her and lifted his arms so she could pull it over his head. She bit her lower lip as she looked over his sculpted body, muscles gleaming in the light of the fire.

"You like that, baby?" He grinned and flexed his chest for her.

"You fucking know it!" She smiled back, running her finger from his collar bone, over his pectorals and down the middle of his abs, hooking it over the waist-band of his jeans.

Michael ran his tongue over his own lip. He cleared his throat.

"So, uh, did you hear there's a new cape in town?" He ventured.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow and peered over an imaginary pair of glasses at him.

"...Why the hell would you bring that up now? Oh god, are you gonna ask me to dress up and do role-play shit?"

"What? No!? I… uh, I just heard about a new cape going around and I thought it was interesting, that's all."

Charlotte propped herself up on her elbow.

"Okay, then, go on; what's so interesting about bug-girl?"

"What? Who? No, I meant Werewolf!"

"The guy she beat up?"

"They fought, I don't think she 'beat him up'."

"Mike, I saw the video; she handed him his ass on a platter. She threw him off a building and dropped a fire escape on him, then he ran away like a bitch. I'm not surprised the Wards snapped her up."

Michael stood up, his arms folded.

"Okay, first she didn't 'throw him off a building'," He put finger quotes around the phrase, "he misjudged a lunge, and second" He began to pace in front of the couch, "she had fuck-all to do with the fire escape, it was a rusty old piece of shit that would've fallen off in the next strong breeze.

Third he…"

Charlotte stood up and put her arm around his bare shoulders. She put a finger on his lips.

"As powerfully erotic as it is to listen to you running defence for your new autistic fixation, can we please go back to the couch?"

He waved his arm, breaking her embrace, and turned his back on her, folding his arms again.

"No, you know what? I'm not really in the mood anymore."

She let her mouth hang open incredulously.

"'Not in the mood'? What, are you on the rag or something?"

A little red in the cheeks, Michael grabbed his shirt off the couch and tugged it back over his head.

"I'll see you tomorrow." He muttered, and stalked off out of the room. As he went, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, and pulled up a text from a couple of days ago. He still just had time to respond….

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As the sun set that evening, Werewolf paced up and down outside a particular abandoned parking garage. He muttered to himself, creating a constant, soft, growl as his clawed feet clacked on the asphalt. He reached out and dragged his taloned fingers across the concrete, leaving deep gouges through a black-white-and-red number 88, sprayed large on the wall.

"Not the best idea to deface our tag if you're hoping to join up, kid."

A handsome, athletic, young man walked out of the shadow of the entrance. His skin was salt-white, as was his hair, and as he drew closer, Werewolf could see so were his eyes; devoid of pupils or irises.

"Alabaster." Werewolf stated, nodding in greeting.

The young man beckoned.

"Come on, the big man himself is waiting to see you."

Without waiting to see Werewolf's reaction Alabaster turned and walked back into the structure. Michael hesitated for half a heartbeat, then trotted along after the Empire cape. The run-down structure smelt of urine and decay even to normal humans, to Werewolf it was a catalogue of everyone who had ever relieved themselves in one of the dank corners, their sex, age, and medical and dietary history. He could hear the vermin in the walls, and the shadows cast by the flickering fluorescent lights hid nothing from his vision.

By the lingering scent of exhaust fumes and the rubber traces on the floor, he could tell that a large vehicle, probably a humvee, had passed through here not too long ago, and as he approached the entrance to the basement level he smelt five more individuals. Three men, two smelling of money in the form of expensive clothes and up-market health food and toiletries, one smelt of metal, the other of leather. The third man smelt like a homeless crack-head. There were two women who both smelt similar; high-end womens' beauty and hygiene products. They also smelt of each other, probably siblings.

Kaiser, Krieg, the giant twins and… who was the third man? There was little time to speculate as the two super villains emerged into the lowest floor of the garage. Just as Michael had scented, Kaiser, clad entirely in mirror-finished steel armour like a knight straight out of a romantic historical fiction, stood back ram-rod straight, hands clasped behind him, feet shoulder-width apart, projecting authority and control. Next to him was Kreig, in his supermarket-own-brand S.S. uniform and gas-mask, black leather trench-coat swept behind him as he imitated his boss's stance. They were flanked by Menja and Fenja, towering valkyries in norse-inspired armour each grasping a spear. Behind them was a hulking black S.U.V. and kneeling next to it was the third man, a ragged figure with a cloth sack over his head and his hands bound behind his back. He stank of fear, urine, and habitual drug use.

"Hail Kaiser." Said Alabaster, coming to an abrupt halt and giving the Spartan salute.

"Mm." Kaiser responded with an imperious half-wave of his hand which may or may not have been a lazily returned salute. "So," he addressed Werewolf directly, "you came then."

"Yessir." Michael drew himself up a little straighter. "I-I didn't know you'd be here to meet me in person, sir."

"I always attend the induction of new capes into our organisation. You're not just one of the common herd after all, you're one of us, a cut above, more capable, better."

Michael's chest swelled a little at that.

"Yes sir! Thank-you, sir!" He was so absorbed in the exchange he missed Menja and Fenja briefly shooting each other sideways glances and rolling their eyes.

"I understand you were a little hesitant to join my empire," Kaiser said in a voice very pointedly not full of reproachment, throwing its absence into stark relief, "may I ask, what was it that caused you to make up your mind?"

"Well, uh, that is to say, I… uh, look, sir, you may have heard that I had a run-in with a certain cape…."

"Ah." Kaiser cut him off. "You want a little payback on the girl, Weaver I believe she goes by? But of course she's in the Wards now, so you'll need some back up. Am I near the mark?"

"Uh, yessir."

The inscrutable visor of the gang-leader's helmet regarded the young supervillain for a moment, causing him to shift uncomfortably from foot-to-foot.

"Very well, then. Just one more little formality." He clicked his fingers, making a clanking sound with his steel gauntlet.

The twang of fear emanating from the prisoner spiked again as Kreig reached down and grabbed the ragged man's collar, half-dragging him in a manner which obliged him to awkwardly shuffle on his knees as he was manhandled to the front of the group.

"Blood in." Stated Kaiser.

Werewolf stared at the man with the bag over his head. An awful, gurgling scream rose in his memory. The coppery smell of blood. So much blood. He'd smelled fear then, too. His own and another's. He didn't move a muscle.

"If it makes you feel better this… individual is a drug pusher working for the Merchants. He's scum straight out of the gutter, and as soon as we're finished here he'll go straight back there, unmourned and unmissed. You'll face no reprisals for anything which transpires here."

Michael didn't respond. In his own head he was back in an alley. That alley. The alley. It had just been a simple shortcut after a night partying at Gerry's house, but then there had been the man with the knife. Michael had tried to run, but the man had caught him, stuck him, more than once. Had it been four times? Five? There had been pain, and so much blood. Michael had known he was going to die in a filthy alley for an amount of money he could have lost in the laundry and not missed.

Then….

Then… something had happened, and he couldn't quite remember what it was. And then he had reached inside himself and pulled out the wolf for the first time. His clothes had shredded around his new body as it grew out of his old one. His wounds had closed instantly, and his fading strength had returned to him twice over or more. Filled with rage he had struck the man, who was now cowering against the wall across from him. His claws had sprung from his fingers as though on their own, and the man's face had been shredded and he was screaming and screaming and screaming. Michael lurched from rage to panic, and shoved the man in an effort to shut him up. The mugger's head hit the corner of the wall with a wet crunch and he fell silent.

Michael was breathing hard. His pupils were pin-picks. Kaiser, Kreig, the twins, Alabaster, they were all staring at him.

"Do we have a problem?" Asked Kaiser.

Michael threw up.

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It was getting close to midnight as Werewolf padded softly through the darkness of the old industrial district. The street lighting, where it worked at all, cast a dim and dirty permanent twilight over the area, providing plenty of shadows for predators to hide in, predators just like him. He was on the hunt for something very specific, something he'd heard rumours about online.

He was down on all fours, with his nose lowered to the ground, eyes closed as he concentrated on filtering through the scent trails of the hundreds of people who traipsed up and down the sidewalks every day. He wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for, but he had a general idea. He was looking for teenagers, two boys and three girls, plus some dogs, who spent a good deal of time in the area. He'd already followed a few false leads, but he knew that sooner or later his persistence would be rewarded.

He rounded a corner and abruptly the background hum of the city was cut off as though a recording had come to an end. He opened his eyes. Total darkness. He couldn't see his hand in front of his face, nor could he hear his own breathing, but could smell five teenagers, two boys and three girls, and three dogs, two male, one female. There was something… off about the dogs, they smelled all jacked up on adrenaline and something else, some weird cocktail of hormones? Whatever it was, it was getting stronger little by little.

"The Undersiders, I presume?" He couldn't hear his own words, but they seemed to have an effect.

A little island of clarity in the middle of the darkness opened up around him like the eye of a hurricane, revealing them: Gru, tall and imposing, clad in black motorbike leathers, his helmet had a skull moulded on the front, and more of the darkness billowed out around it like dense smoke. Regent, in his vaguely renaissance fair-esque get-up of a silk shirt, what looked like yoga pants, a white carnival mask and a little silver crown. Tattletale in a dark purple-and-black bodysuit with a simple domino mask, her long, blond hair worn loose. Bitch was dressed like a roadie for a heavy metal band with a cheap, plastic, dog mask like the kind you could get at any novelty shop. At her heel were three… Michael would hesitate to call them 'dogs' at this point, they were huge and spikey, all teeth and menace. He could smell the fifth person, but he still couldn't see her. That figured. They were pretty much how their respective online profiles had painted them.

"Why are you sniffing around our territory?" Gru's voice was deep, artificially deep as though he was using a voice-changer, and it had reverb on it. It might be his power, or it might be something he had built into his helmet.

"Word around town is you're recruiting, and I'm considering my options. Thought I'd give you goobers the chance to pitch yourselves."

At that Tattletale coughed into her hand in a way that didn't quite hide the involuntary laugh.

"What makes you think we're recruiting?" Gru asked, folding his arms.

"You picked up that Wraith chick."

"Did we, now?"

"Sure, she's right here. Unless you've picked up some other girl who can turn invisible, uses an allo shampoo, moisturises regularly with an unscented lotion, goes light on the makeup, had a pasta thing with guac for dinner, a B.L.T. for lunch, and 'Oops all berries Captain Crunch' for breakfast, is about a week off her period, and last took a dump…"

"Okay, okay, Jesus, I'm here." Just to the left of Regent a figure appeared out of thin air. She, like Gru, was all in black, but where he wore leathers, she wore a bodysuit with a hooded cloak over the top, and a mask which covered the lower half of her face. "No need to be so god damned personal." she grumbled.

"So," Said Werewolf, "Am I in or what?"

Instead of Gru, Tattletale responded.

"Oh heeeeeeeeeeeell no!" She began to list off items on her fingers. "First off, you're a power asshole. You'd cause friction with everyone here, and you'd break up the group dynamic. You wouldn't listen to instructions and you'd get us into way more trouble than you could ever possibly be worth."

"Hey, fuck you, bitch, I wasn't talking to…" A small cloud of darkness wrapped itself around his muzzle, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"Don't interrupt the lady, it's rude." Rumbled Gru.

"Thanks." The blonde resumed listing things. "Secondly, we don't need any more muscle, we have Bitch." she gestured with her thumb over her shoulder toward the three still-growing dog monsters and their mistress. "And third, you only want to join us because you want back-up in your dumb-ass revenge quest against that bug girl who rocked your wig the other night, and you chickened out on your initiation to the Empire 88. Although I guess that makes you just an asshole rather than a murderer, so at least you have that going for you."

Werewolf swatted at his muzzle in a vain effort to try and disperse the silencing darkness. Gru addressed him.

"Yeah, we don't need someone who's going to start shit with the Wards. Don't come around here again."

And with that, the darkness enveloped Werewolf, and the scent of the gang diminished as they left. Werewolf briefly considered pursuing them, but thought better of it.

"YEAH, WELL FUCK YOU ASSHOLES, THEN!!" He yelled silently into the darkness.

As the oppressive cloud of blackness lifted, he lashed out at the building to his left and punched a divot into the bricks. His bloody knuckles healed over and he stomped off down the road He didn't need these pansy-ass faggots anyway, he still had options. He just needed to find guys with enough balls to stand up to the Protectorate's weenie-hut-junior division, and he had just the guys in mind….

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The weather had been unseasonably chilly for April, but tonight the weather was finally warming up a little.

"You got a good night for your first night patrol, rookie!" Trilled Bumble.

Weaver, the newest recruit for the Brockton Bay Wards, adjusted her face mask again.

"I wish Glenn had let me keep my original costume."

Instead of her original black and charcoal get-up the portly head of the P.R.T.'s image department had insisted that she change to a light grey and white costume with a softer design and blue lenses on the face mask.

"It was a little bit… intimidating."

"It's going to be a few days or more before I can get enough silk to reinforce my new suit."

"Silk?"

"Spider silk."

Bumble made a face.

"Eww! I mean, I know it's a tough material, but still, eww!"

"You don't like spiders?"

"Does anyone?"

They chattered back and forth as Weaver made her way through the streets of Brockton Bay with the tiny form of Bumble flitting around her. They turned into the Boardwalk district, but as they emerged onto the public walkway with rows of shops to their right and the sea to their left they were greeted with a truly bizarre sight.

"Oh god." Stated Bumble. "What on Earth is this now?"

Two men were standing in the middle of the street. One was tall and muscular, wearing a set of blue overalls over a red shirt, with white gloves and a red cap with an 'M' on the front and a bushy fake moustache, the other was shorter and thinner, wearing a green tunic and pointed hat with white leggings and fake elf-ears, holding a sword and shield. A couple of small, spherical, Tinker-tech camera drones swooped around them, lenses buzzing a whirring as they changed focus.

"I forget," said Weaver, "which one's Über, and which one's Leet?"

"I am Über!" Announced the bigger man in a deep, dramatic voice, striking a pose.

"...And I'm Leet!" added his scrawny companion, unnecessarily. "And we're Smash Bros, here to smash you!"

There was a pause, and both men looked to an alleyway between two shops to their left. From the shadows emerged Werewolf, wearing a costume designed to fit over his animalistic frame: He had on a green jumpsuit with a white jacket over the top with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, fingerless gloves and a three-pronged device which wrapped around the back of his head, and had a green eyepiece over his right eye.

"I'm Werewolf and I'm not into this faggot nerd shit, but you've got an ass-whooping comming, bitch," He pointed at Weaver, "and if this is the price I have to pay, so be it!"

Weaver looked as baffled as anyone wearing a full-face mask possibly could.

"Ass whooping? The fuck did I do? You're the bozo who fell off the roof." As she spoke, the swarm of insects she'd been gathering emerged from the surrounding area, and a dense cloud of flying creepy crawlies enveloped the trio of villains.

At this, Werewolf tapped a button on the side of his head-gear and a blueish bubble enveloped his head. It crackled and popped as insects fried instantly on contact. Likewise Über pressed the 'M' on his hat-band and Leet clacked his sword-hilt to his shield, both activating their own bug countermeasures: Über began to emit a throbbing pulse of low, barely-audible sound, which caused insects too near to him to drop out of the air, stunned, and Leet's shield lit up, pulsing with light, and causing insects, as well as any other small items to be pushed away from him with a force just slightly too powerful for the tiny creatures to resist.

"Yeah that's right, cunt!" Gloated Werewolf, "I told these two all about you, you won't get any cheap-shots with your bullshit bug powers this time!" So saying he lunged for Weaver, obliging her to dive out of the way.

"Oh, jeeze!" Exclaimed Bumble, blasting off a few glowing projectiles at Leet, "We need to fall back! I've already called for back-up, but we need to get out of here!"

"Oh no!" Yelled Werewolf, swiping blindly at Weaver, "I had to dress up like a stupid asshole to get these two to play ball, and I'm gonna get my revenge!" In spite of his head-bubble, the insects were still obscuring his vision, swarming just inches from his face, causing him to miss yet again as Weaver dodged under his massive, flailing claws.

"Hey!" whined Leet, as he ducked behind his shield to avoid two more shots from the tiny flying form of Bumble, "Star Fox is an awesome character!"

"Video games are for fucking nerds!" Snarled Werewolf, cracking the asphalt with a double overhead smash which Weaver sidestepped handily, flicking out her batton as she did so.

"That's exactly the kind of regressive attitude we seek to combat!" Announced Über, as he executed a flawless flying kick which Bumble dodged only at the last second.

"That's because you guys are fucking nerds! AAARGH!" Werewolf roared as Weaver smashed him in the side of his knee as hard as she could with her baton, causing it to collapse with a sickening crunch. He rolled onto his back and kicked out with his injured leg, straightening it out so it could regenerate the broken joint. Weaver took the opportunity to crack her weapon over his headgear, causing his force-field to short out. "OH GOD FRNGLWARGLEBRGLEGLRF!!!" He blurted out as insects swarmed his face, crawling into his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.

Meanwhile Bumble continued to keep up the pressure on Leet while weaving around Über's attempts to swat her out of the sky. She had no way of knowing just how functional the smaller man's sword was and she had no desire to find out, so she opened up on him with everything she had, blasting bright glowing balls of energy from her fingertips, and summoning lances of burning light from thin air to sweep in his general direction; it wasn't very accurate, but it kept him busy.

"We need to disengage and wait for backup!" She called to Weaver again.

"I'm trying!" Weaver replied, dodging another headlong charge from an infuriated Werewolf.

Über grabbed a loose piece of paving slab from the sidewalk and flung it at Bumble, striking her in the midsection and breaking her concentration. The sweeping laser beams attacking Leet cut out abruptly, allowing him to regain his composure, and run in to help his partner attacking the diminutive heroine. Bumble had dropped to the floor, stunned, but not seriously hurt. She lept up and flicked out her wings, soaring up into the air again, but before she could get far Über grabbed her by the leg. She hit him square in the face with one of her projectiles, but he clung on grimly, pulling her back down. Taking a cue from her patrol partner, Bumble switched targets, blasting Über's hat instead. It flew off his head and landed a few feet away where it began to spark and smoulder before the Tinker-tech inside burst into multi-coloured flames. Instantly, the big man was swarmed by flies, bees, wasps, and anything else Weaver had been able to summon from the surrounding environment. He released his tiny captive to swat at his face and roll on the ground in a vain effort to repel them.

Just then, Weaver mistimed a dodge, and was sent sprawling by a swipe from Werewolf, the front of her costume ripped with four claw marks so deep they had penetrated the built-in kevlar and drawn blood. Before she could recover he was on her, hauling her up with one huge, clawed hand around her throat.

"Call 'em off! Call the fucking bugs off or I'll break your fucking neck!" He shouted through his mouth-full of insects. He shook her from side-to-side for emphasis.

Weaver hesitated for a moment, then the swarm receded, hovering a few feet from the villains.

"That's better." he spat out a few dead bugs and grinned at his captive. Then he pointed at Bumble. "You, fuck off. Or don't, I don't care, but if you try anything I'll pop her head off like god damned champagne cork, and you," He pointed at Leet, "Get your fucking camera drones in close, I want this on record!"

Leet pulled back the sleeve on his shield-arm revealing a large, digital watch-like device and jabbed at it for a moment, then the drones swooped in on Werewolf.

"Alright, first of all…" And then the right side of his head exploded in a shower of meat and bone fragments, spraying blood all over Weaver's mask. The thunder-retort of the gunfire echoed around the Boardwalk a fraction of a second later.

"Holy shit!" Squealed Leet, as he and his burly partner span around to see a tall figure in red and black combat gear eyeing them both down the iron sights of a combat shotgun.

"I'm sure there are a million fantastic reasons why I shouldn't smear both of you chuckle-fucks across the sidewalk like your friend, there, but for the life of me, right now I can't think of a single one." Growled Buckshot. "You're going after kids now? I ought to do the world a favour and save the taxpayer the cost of a couple of trials."

"Oh fuck, please, don't..." Leet seemed on the verge of tears.

"Wait, no, we didn't…" Über was holding together a little better, but even he looked like he was an inch away from needing new pants.

Two more shots rang out and both camera drones exploded like skeet.

"I don't recall asking for either of your opinions. Now get down on the fucking ground before I put you in it. You know the position."

Wordlessly, both super villains got down on their knees, then lay down on the ground with their hands behind their heads.

"We got your request for backup." Buckshot remarked to Bumble, who was standing in shock, having resumed her true size. "Get the cuffs on these assholes and we'll see about.. Huh, where'd he go?"

Sure enough, where Werewolf had fallen there was now only a puddle of blood and an unconcious Weaver.

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Werewolf ran as quietly as he could, loping along on all fours. The shot had missed his Corona Pollentia by probably less than an inch, and he'd been lucky that the bitch had passed out from blood loss or whatever before he needed to sneak away. Maybe directly attacking a member of the Wards while she was on patrol wasn't the best idea in the world, maybe he should watch and wait for his opportunity to strike. Yes, that was it, stalk her like a real wolf, and wait for the moment she least expected, then he'd get his revenge.

For now though, he just needed to get the fuck away from unhinged gun-toting psychopaths.

And big gay nerds.