I found out that I had been out for about 8 hours or so, it being the after of the day after. We arrived at the hotel. Jacob got a room for the night. When I went to get my room key from the hidden pocket I have, I discovered that it was not there. Jacob held up a clear plastic bag, with it and a few other things in it. "Thought you might need this stuff, so I got it before I went into the interrogation room."
After he got settled in, he came over to my room carrying a briefcase. we sat down around the table and he pulled some papers out of his briefcase. "Here's the scoop. At this point, you have a choice. In a way, I think that you will like the choice I am offering you, as it's the only real way for you to continue to live." He handed me a couple of papers. I looked them over for a bit, and then cleared my throat.
"These are enlistment forms. My guess is that My choices are as such: I enlist in whatever army that these forms are for, or I get to rot in a jail until the other prisoners figure out how to kill me. Am I correct?"
"In a way, yes. The 'army' that those forms are for are a special operations group that I am a recruiter for. As for the jail, the Tigereans in that jail would kill you the day you walked in. They don't like half-breeds, and that jail is most likely where you would end up."
Great. I never did like armies. But I had no choice. I looked at the forms again, this time paying more attention to some of the smaller print." So let me get this straight. According to these forms, I'm basically be doing what I'm doing now, except that it's for the government."
"That, or something simular. I don't know what's open yet. If you could please start filling out the forms, I'll see where The Old Man wants you." As I started on the forms, Jacob withdrew a white box with several lights on it, and plugged it in line with the hotel phone. He picked up, and dialed a number. The lights on the box started flashing red and green, then went all green and Jacob started talking to someone on the phone.
"Hello sir. I've found a new recruit. Yes, it's the one I told you about a while ago. Yes sir, he knows about his mother. Tells me he was watching when she did it, and when she died. Yes sir, he seems to have most of the usual strengths and weaknesses. Yes, I think he'd make a good hunter. Oh, Red needs one? great. You want him on Red? Ok. I'll put him in through McCoy. Yes sir, it's the closest. Yeah, I want to harass ol' Knide again. Ok. Yes sir. I'll tell him that. Thanks. Bye."
He put the phone down, and reconnected everything as it was. I had finished what I could of the form, and handed it back to him. He looked over the forms for a minute, then took a pen out. "Ok, Here's the scoop. You will report to Fort McCoy for your boot camp training and for additional training. After your training, you will then report to Fort Bliss near El Paso." Great. Freaking Texas. Figures. "You will be given about two weeks of leave to report to Bliss. If not, I will, and I quote, personally hunt your fuzzy ass down and tear your armor out one bone at a time. Is that understood?". I was a bit rattled at this sudden burst of anger. "Y-Yes sir. May I ask something?" Jacob backed down a bit on seeing the look in my eye. "Yeah. Sorry about that kid, I get rather ominous at times. What did you want to know?" I calmed down a bit. "Why Texas? It's probably the worst place for Tigereans and Weres." "Yeah, you think that the Old Man would have put down somewhere else. But El Paso may surprise you in more ways than you think. Besides, what happened in Texas that put you off that state?" I sighed. I'd better tell him now, rather then wait for it to come out later by rumor.
"Well, that's where I grew up with mom after the, uh, incident with Dad. We had been drifting around a bit for a while, and we finally settled outside of Austin. We managed to keep a fairly low profile for about ten years or so. Then the troubles started. A bunch of city folks started harassing us every time we came into town to get supplies. It finally came to a head about 8 years ago. About five medium sized men came out to the small ranch we lived on, and told us to either leave, or they would kill us. They didn't say it out loud like that of course, but you can tell from the way they smell and their body language. I was in the house, and Mom came back and said that we needed to go. I helped drag the big trunk down to the basement where the car was, and loaded it up. We then loaded up as much as we would put in that old thing, and got it ready to go.
The men came back out before we left, and started shooting at us. Mom told me to run and hide, so I ran back into the house. I heard a lot of noise, some screams and then several high pitched yelps. They had my mother. I cursed myself for being such a fool for not being by her side, and ran down to defend her. The yelps has turned into screams of agony by the time I got downstairs. They had dragged her out, and had started to skin her alive. I do not remember what happened next, except that my anger overtook my rational senses. By the time I came to again, I was out in the forest about a quarter mile away, looking at a burning house in the distance. I raced back to the house, and barely managed to get the car out before the house collapsed on it. I buried my mother, and the what was left of the five. I then took the car, and drove as fast and as far as I could. I eventually made it to Illinois. I left the car and all my stuff with a relative, and started wandering."
Jacob looked at me with those yellow eyes. He had started to shift to his wolfen form as I was telling the story. I looked at myself, and noticed that I had shifted too. My claws had pretty much shredded the chair I was sitting in. I heard a cough, and Jacob said in that wonderful wolfen voice of his, "My god.. I had no idea. Do you remember anything about what happened to the men?" I shook my head. "The only thing I remember was an odd sensation. Hmmm..." I thought for a minute. "Come outside with me. I might be able to show you what may have happened. Mother had told me that in rare instances, a mutant gene gets turned on in half breeds."
Jacob followed me outside and into a small stand of woods nearby. I thought for a minute, and suddenly, the shift occurred. It was like the normal sensation of shifting, with the tingling of the skin as the nerves shut themselves off, changed form, and turned themselves back on, but this was much more. It felt like someone had set my pelt on fire itself, and then had all my bones broken and re-set at once. I felt myself growing taller, going from being able to look Jacob in the eye to towering almost half a meter above him. I felt my shifted body after the sensations had passed. I felt like I could destroy almost anything, with the raw power that this form had. I then looked at Jacob's eyes. they had gone wide with terror and fear. I felt embarrassed, and shifted back down to my furry self.
"Wow", was all that Jacob could say, once he got his voice back. "It's true then, what I had heard. You will be a valuable asset to Red team." Jacob said. "Can you talk in that form? What did it feel like?" I sat down on a fallen log nearby. "It was almost like being drunk on raw energy. I could feel the raw power flowing through my whole body. Unfortunately, I can't seem to talk in that form..." I thought for a moment again, and then put my head in my hands, the tears starting to form. "God. That's what I turned into when I killed those five men, and then the two muggers. No wonder the lady fainted." Jacob sat down next to me and put his arm around me. "It's gonna be ok. We can show you how to control it. You've done your family proud. I know that honor is a big thing with tigereans. You have gone where honor has led you. Now, you need to get some sleep. You've got a long drive ahead of you, and an even harder time training. But let me tell you one thing, a warning. Keep that form hidden. It's frightening, even to a grizzled, tough old werewolf like me. The drill sargent will shit himself if he sees you like that. Do old Jacob a favor and only reveal it to the old man and the teams in your new unit. I'll catch hell for it, but they will understand. Okay?"
"Okay. Come on, I'll buy you a drink."