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The air in the ventilation shaft was a static-filled tomb, thick with the taste of filtered dust and chilled metal. Jack moved through the tight, dark space with an unnerving silence, his large, clawed form navigating the labyrinth of ducts with an instinctual grace. Below, the world was a symphony of chaos—the staccato bursts of Elsa's rifle, the crashing of equipment, the shouts of panicked men, and the occasional, sharp cry that signaled Morbius's swift and silent work.
He was a shadow above the storm, his every sense focused downward, filtering the cacophony for the specific frequencies he was hunting for.
He discarded the scent of sweat and fear from the security guards. It was common, base. He filtered out the acrid tang of ozone from shattered electronics. He ignored the coppery spike of blood—Morbius was efficient, but not wasteful.
Then he found it.
A current of air, cooler and cleaner than the rest, carrying a specific, sterile signature. Antiseptic. Rubbing alcohol. The faint, sweet-metallic odor of fresh, high-grade plastic. And underneath it all, the cloying, expensive cologne of Dr. Aris Thorne.
The lab.
He followed the scent trail, a spectral bloodhound on an invisible leash. It led him to a large vent cover. Peering through the slats, he saw a scene of stark contrast to the industrial warehouse outside.
It was a state-of-the-art laboratory, a clean room nestled like a pearl within the grimy shell of Apex Logistics. White, sterile surfaces gleamed under bright LED panels. Sleek computer banks hummed, their screens filled with cascading data streams. And in the center of the room, on a reinforced pedestal, sat a device that made the Observatory's resonator look like a child's toy.
It was larger, more complex, its central crystal a pulsating heart of captured moonlight, contained within a lattice of silver-alloy wires. Wires that were currently glowing with intense, focused power. This was no mere amplifier. This was the source. The broadcast tower.
And standing before it, his back to the vent, was Thorne. He was frantically typing at a console, pulling data drives from a server rack.
"The signal is being overwhelmed! We've lost the perimeter!" a technician yelled from a monitoring station, his face pale.
"It doesn't matter," Thorne snapped, his voice tight with a frantic energy. "The primary data set from Subject Zero is secure. The transformation metrics, the neural load during command imposition… it's all here. Phase one is a complete success. Now we evac and begin fabrication of the next-gen resonators."
Subject Zero. The term landed on Jack's ears not as an insult, but as a confirmation. He was livestock to them. A numbered asset.
Thorne slammed his hand on a large, red button on the console.
A low, powerful hum filled the laboratory. At the far end of the room, a section of the wall began to slide open, revealing a dark, reinforced garage bay. Inside, the sleek, armored shape of a transport vehicle began to power up, its headlights cutting through the gloom.
They were running. And they were taking the blueprint for Jack's own curse with them.
The plan had been to be a ghost. To sabotage and vanish.
But some insults demanded a more personal response.
With a single, powerful wrench of his shoulders, Jack tore the vent cover from its housing. The shriek of tearing metal was lost in the din of the alarm, but the impact of the heavy grate hitting the pristine white floor was not.
Thorne and the technician spun around.
The technician's face dissolved into pure, unadulterated terror. Thorne's eyes, however, widened with a perverse mix of fear and insatiable, clinical curiosity.
Jack dropped into the room, landing in a low crouch that shook the floor. He rose to his full height, the sterile white light glinting off his dark fur and the wet blackness of his nose. He filled the space, a primordial force invading a world of clean, logical lines.
The technician fumbled for a sidearm. Jack's arm shot out, a blur of motion. He didn't strike the man. He simply swatted the gun from his hand, the metal clattering across the room. The technician stumbled back against a console, clutching his wrist, and did not move again, frozen by fear.
Jack's glowing yellow eyes never left Thorne.
"You're too late, Subject," Thorne said, his voice trembling only slightly. He held up a silver data drive, triumph in his eyes. "The essence of what you are… it's already mine."
Jack took a step forward, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that was half-man, half-beast. "I'm not here for the data."
He took another step, the claws of his feet scraping against the floor.
"I'm here for the architect."
The air in the sterile lab crackled with a new kind of energy—primal, predatory, and intensely personal. The hum of the resonator, the blare of the alarms, it all faded into a dull background roar for Jack. His world had narrowed to the man in the lab coat, the data drive in his hand, and the pounding rhythm of a single, clear thought: This ends here.
Thorne's bravado finally cracked. The clinical fascination in his eyes was swallowed by the survival instinct of a cornered animal. He took a stumbling step back, his heel catching on a cable. He fumbled at his waist, pulling not a weapon, but another remote. Smaller, more crude than the last.
"The command frequency may not hold you," Thorne stammered, his thumb hovering over a button. "But this is a concentrated burst of raw lunar radiation! It will trigger an immediate, catastrophic transformation! You'll be lost to the beast right here, and you'll tear this entire facility apart, including your friends!"
Jack didn't stop. He took another slow, deliberate step, his growl deepening. "You think that's a threat? You're in a room with a monster, and your best idea is to try and make him angrier?"
Panic彻底 seized Thorne. He slammed his thumb down on the button.
A high-pitched whine erupted from the main resonator, and a beam of solid, searing white light lanced from the central crystal, striking Jack directly in the chest.
The effect was instantaneous and agonizing. It was like being struck by lightning made of pure instinct. Jack roared, not in pain, but in raw, unbridled fury. The controlled, intelligent light in his eyes flickered, swamped by a rising tide of feral yellow. His muscles swelled, his frame expanding another few inches, the last vestiges of his human speech stolen by a guttural snarl. Thorne had succeeded. He had poked the bear with a red-hot iron.
The beast surged forward, no longer a calculating hunter, but a force of pure destruction.
Thorne scrambled backward, a scream dying in his throat. The beast swiped a clawed hand, not at Thorne, but at the console beside him. The entire unit exploded in a shower of sparks and shattered plastic, the force of the blow throwing Thorne across the room. He landed in a heap against the wall, the silver data drive skittering from his grasp.
The beast's head swiveled, its gaze locking onto the glowing, pulsing heart of the resonator. It recognized the source of its pain, its rage. With a world-shaking bellow, it launched itself at the machine.
But in that moment, as the beast raised a claw to smash the crystal to dust, a flicker of resistance sparked in the heart of the storm.
The data.
The thought was Jack's, a tiny, desperate flare in the consuming darkness. If it's destroyed, he can't rebuild it. He can't make more.
The beast hesitated, its claw hovering inches from the pulsating crystal. The conflict was visible in its trembling form—the instinct to destroy warring with a ghost of human logic.
It was the opening Thorne needed. Gasping, bleeding from a cut on his forehead, he saw the data drive lying on the floor. He lunged for it.
The movement snapped the beast's focus back to him. The internal conflict vanished, replaced by a single, unified purpose. As Thorne's fingers closed around the drive, a massive, fur-covered hand closed around his entire forearm.
There was a sickening, wet crack.
Thorne screamed, a high, shrill sound of absolute agony as the bones in his forearm shattered. The data drive clattered to the floor once more, this time landing at the beast's feet.
The beast leaned in, its hot, rank breath washing over Thorne's face, its fangs dripping. This was it. The end. Retribution.
But then, a new scent cut through the rage. Not fear. Not aggression. Familiarity. Ally.
Elsa Bloodstone stood in the shattered doorway to the lab, her rifle lowered, her face grim. She didn't aim. She didn't shout. She simply looked at the beast, at the scene of brutal victory, and spoke a single, calm word.
"Jack."
The beast flinched. The name was a key, turning a lock deep inside. The feral yellow in its eyes flickered, and for a single, heart-stopping second, the intelligent, tortured brown of Jack Russell fought its way to the surface. He looked at Elsa. He looked down at the broken, sobbing man in his grip. He looked at the data drive.
With a final, contemptuous snarl, he threw Thorne aside. The scientist crumpled against the wall, clutching his destroyed arm, whimpering.
The beast—no, Jack—stared at the pulsating resonator. He didn't smash it. Instead, he reached out and, with a delicate precision that belied his monstrous form, he carefully ripped the central, glowing crystal from its housing.
The blinding silver light died instantly. The hum ceased. The room was plunged into the relative quiet of the ongoing alarm, now feeling hollow and meaningless.
Jack turned, the captured crystal pulsing softly in his massive hand like a captured star. He looked at Elsa, his chest heaving, the beast slowly receding as his control reasserted itself, piece by painful piece.
The weapon was neutralized. The architect was broken. The blueprint was at his feet.
The first battle was over.
Silence, thick and heavy, settled over the ruined lab. The only sounds were Thorne's ragged, pained whimpers and the relentless, distant blare of the alarm. The pulsating crystal in Jack's hand cast shifting, eerie shadows across his furred face, illuminating the slow retreat of the beast from his eyes.
Elsa stepped fully into the room, her boots crunching on shattered plastic. Her gaze swept from the broken Thorne to the neutralized resonator, finally landing on Jack. There was no praise in her eyes, no condemnation. Only a cold, professional assessment.
"The perimeter is secure. Morbius is… tidying up," she reported, her voice cutting through the static-filled air. She nudged the silver data drive with the toe of her boot. "This is it? The 'essence of what you are'?"
Jack gave a slow, stiff nod, the motion still more animal than human. "The blueprint," he rasped, his voice gravelly as it fought its way back from a bestial snarl. "For their army."
Elsa bent down and picked up the drive, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as if it were a venomous insect. "Then this goes into the deepest, darkest vault the Bloodstone estate has to offer." She looked at Thorne, who was cradling his shattered arm, his face a mask of pain and utter defeat. "And him?"
Jack's glowing eyes fixed on the scientist. The urge to finish it, to ensure this man could never again threaten him or anyone else, was a hot coal in his gut. It would be so easy. A single, swift motion.
But as he looked at the broken man, he saw not a monster to be slain, but the consequence of his own power. Killing him in cold blood, even now, would be a victory for the curse. It would be the beast's solution, not the man's.
"We hand him over," Jack said, the decision solidifying his resolve. His voice grew stronger, clearer. "To the authorities you work with sometimes. The ones who handle the 'weird' cases. Let him try to explain his research to them. A prison cell is a better cage for him than a grave."
A flicker of what might have been respect crossed Elsa's features. She gave a curt nod. "It can be arranged. He'll disappear into the system. He'll never see the outside world again."
From the shadows near the door, Morbius emerged, his dark coat immaculate despite the chaos. He glanced at the captured crystal in Jack's hand, his expression unreadable. "A fascinating trophy. A captured piece of the moon itself. I would be… curious to study its properties."
"It's not a trophy," Jack said, his gaze dropping to the pulsating light in his palm. He could feel its energy, a siren song even in its dormant state, whispering to the wolf in his blood. "It's a reminder."
He closed his massive fingers around it, the light winking out, contained but not extinguished.
"It's a reminder that they saw what I am as a weapon. A thing to be copied, controlled, and sold." He looked from Elsa to Morbius, his human consciousness fully restored, the weight of the night's events settling on his shoulders. The melancholy was there, the deep-seated sorrow of his existence. But it was now fused with something new: a hardened, unyielding core of purpose.
"Promethean was just the first. Thorne was just a tool. Someone funded him. Someone gave him this technology. Someone wanted that army." He tightened his grip on the crystal until his knuckles were white. "This isn't over. It's just the beginning."
He stood there, in the heart of the ruined lab, the Werewolf by Night, holding a piece of his own curse in his hand. The immediate threat was neutralized, but the war for his very soul had just been declared. The first battle was won, but the moon was still in the sky, and his howl was now a promise—not of mindless rage, but of a coming storm.
To Be Continue...