This is set in the "Tales from the Blind Pig" universe. And apologies to the Bard for the title.
I hate travel. Normally, travel for me involves usually a road trip to where
ever we are going either in the back seat of Kerry's car (an '01 Caddy De Ville
modified to run off of a alcohol burning turbine), or us on my custom built
bike. The only other way is by air, and most airlines would want me to ride in
the cargo area, AS cargo. And they would charge me more then what I would pay
for a seat. Somehow, I got talked into traveling out of state solo to fix a
problem for one of the customers that our studio sells services to. We expanded
to include digital studio design as part of our offerings, although the studio
side of the house is still the primary money maker. Usually, we have people
come to us, but we have been known to ship Kerry to our customer's sites.
Somehow, Kerry was not available, and I got talked conned
into it. Even with my requirement that the customer agree to my specialized
travel charges (which they paid without flinching; I mean, first class
was the only way I was going on the damn plane) they still got me down there.
For a fairly easy fix that I probably could have talked their network guy
through over the phone.
The trip was lots of fun and entertaining, especially since the airport security just about shit themselves when they asked if I had any weapons to declare and I extended my claws. Fortunately, they also noticed the notarized statement from the FAA specifically allowing me to fly. That shut people up in a fast hurry. The airline, fortunately, did not lose my luggage either way, as it was exceptionally expensive and very hard to replace. (It was a set of custom built network monitors and other audio equipment.) All in all, it was pretty easy, but on the trip home I began to feel uneasy. I had called Kerry, every few hours as was required of me so that she could make sure I was ok. I was fine, but something told me that Kerry was not. The feeling of unease increased all the way home from the airport. My very worst fears came true as I arrived home. The house was there, but Kerry was not. A note was on the table. It gave a phone number to call and a demand for a large amount of money. The note read simply that I needed to call them and pay them most of my net worth or I would never see her again. I started trembling, a feeling that the body only held for a few seconds as the Beast took control. The emotions that he was leaking were mixed, but the Beast had done an admirable job of containing the rage that I knew to be building up.
The Beast went to work without me asking. Within second of reading the note, I found myself typing away furiously on the house's master console, and initiating a trace to the number that was written on the note. the phone number went to a cell phone, not Kerry's. The Beast called it. A male voice answered, and told me what I had to do to get Kerry back. I stated ok, but I wanted to hear from her. She was put on for a few seconds, enough to blurt out a code word we had agreed upon long ago. The computer beeped shortly after this with a fix on the location. I finished the call, and called the police.
The police were singularly unhelpful. They told me to stay put, even after I told them exactly where they were. They started getting more and more irritating. Finally, I had enough. I shifted into a form that only Kerry and a few others had seen, and headed toward the barn, shaking with barely contained rage. The monitors showing the conditions outside showed the main door to be barricaded with SWAT personnel. I opened the person door, pushed the bike outside, and took off leaving a huge rooster of dirt in my wake, as I started toward the inner city.
The Highway patrol officer was along the side of the road writing out a ticket when heard the roar of the Harley barreling down at him on the shoulder at well over 90. He barely had time to jump aside before it flew past, the driver not even slowing down. He looked at the driver he had pulled over, back up at the quickly receding form, and put his ticket book away, shaking his head sadly.
By the time I got to the inner city, I had slowed down, and had switched the big bike into full electric mode, shutting off the alcohol engine, and noiselessly approached the building, which was already surrounded by SWAT officers and other police. I noticed an ostrich was among the officers, and I made a point of quietly tailing around to the back of the building. Parking the bike a block away, I shifted to my full morph form, and started to run to the building's rear entry.
The police sniper spotted a huge orange blur streaking to the building, and took aim. The shaken patrol officer had called in the report of a speeding tiger 10 minutes ago, and command told all the snipers to try and disable the creature as it had obviously gone feral. He carefully got the legs in sight, and pulled the trigger.
I felt the bullet impact the plate protecting my front left leg joint, and realized that the police had instructed the snipers to disable me. Fat chance of that, even with the ostrich's instructions. I felt two more thumps as the sniper tried to futilely disable the rear leg and finally my neck in a final attempt to stop me. I shook off the bullets, which dislodged them and allowed my adrenaline-enhanced healing to close the wounds. This did not cause me to stop, but it did slow me down a bit. I arrived at the door and rearing up, slammed at the door. It burst inwards, sending fragments flying all over. The two thugs that were inside were taken almost completely off guard, as they had heard the sniper fire several seconds before.
The guards both pissed themselves as a huge, half ton wall of orange fur and muscle blasted in behind the flying shards of the door. They stood staring at it for a second, and decided that being behind bars was better then being torn apart. They placed their guns on the ground and stepped away from them. The huge creature stared at each of them, and in turn stepped up to them and sniffed once. He then turned to the corridor and ignored them as they ran outside with their hands in the air.
Sniffing the air, I continued further in to the building. I didn't get vary far. As I turned the corner, a guy with an MP5 unloaded the clip at me, turning me into a bloody mess of fur and pock marks. The bullets fell out and hit the ground with red splut noises as my body, fueled by rage, healed itself at almost the same rate at he was firing at me. The MP5 soon ran dry, and I started walking closer to him. He then took a .50 Desert Eagle out and got two shots off before I swatted it out of his hands with a massive paw. My vision turned red as the rage took over as I smelled him. Underneath the oily firearm, under the powder, the sweat, and the fear, was the scent I was looking for, and it took my sanity and the well defined control of my anger away in one foul sniff. His eyes went wide as they saw my blue green eyes turn steel blue, then purple, then blood red. The whole corridor vibrated with the rumbling growl that emenated from deep within my body. I knew what he did. He knew that I knew. And he knew that he was dead.
The SWAT team that had just entered the rear door when the entire building started vibrating paniced and got back out, afraid that the entire building would come down. The leader decided to hold his team outside the dor and wait for the survivors to get out.
He still tried to run, but he did not get very far. The growl turned into a roar as I pounced on him, kocking him down with the two front paws and pinning him down, claws jammed into his back. He started to scream in pain as I ripped my right front paw out, set it on the floor, picked him up by the impaled claws on my left paw and flipped him over. shaking him loose, I slammed my right paw down on his throat. The scream abrutly stopped as his windpipe was crushed by the force of the blow, blood spraying out. I saw pink foam bubble out from his blood soaked cothing on his chest. His lungs had been punctured. I turned to keep on going, when he pulled one final surprise on me. Somehow, he got his hands on the Desert Eagle, and pulled the trigger, hitting me on a plate junction on my rear right leg. Fortunatly, the leg mearly locked up instead of collapsing. Unfortuantly for him, I was able to turn around, and with one great slash, gutted him from neck to crotch. Blood, intestines and chunks of ragged flesh started sliding out from him and onto the floor as he collasped in a pools of his own organs and blood, staring lifelessly at his gut. I turned back around after swatting the gun out of his now limp grasp again, putting it far out of his reach. Limping now, I continued down the corridor, with one burning thought going through my mind. The Beast took control away from me, took several sniffs, and started running toward where she was being held.
I powered through the walls, not caring that there were metal studs, or live electrical circuits buried in them. We could heal that damage, and even the damaged leg in a few hours. Only one thing could truely damage us, and that thing we were now twenty feet away from and praying that we would reach before the bullets would. I barely even noticed that I was screaming in pain as the electricity, the sharp studs and debris in the wall, and my frozen leg all fought for attention.
The Beast mearly nodded. "Tiger is... out of it at the moment. Please allow me to help you heal. I can loop you back, and remove all traces of him from you. Yes, I know. Don't ask how. He's dead, too, and it was very, very painful for him. You will be pleased to know that at least, I think." She nodded, and as I reached down and kissed her on the forehead, I invoked the same power that re-set the most powerful polymorph alive back to his true state, and looped her chrono-morph power back a day at a time, until I was sure that he was gone. Then, I broke contact with her, and collapsed for a few minutes. She looked at me, concerned as I slowly and painfully stood back up. "Let's go."
We made it out the back door, and into the waiting arms of the police.