Shifting 2
Shifting 2 ‾SnowDragon
With the storm only growing harder by the time the silver shifting dragon had returned home, he made quick work of discarding his soaked clothes and pulling out another set of of ones nearly identical to those he was wearing before, this one patterned in black/darker black stripes. He left the Peace Keeper knife on his ankle in it's holster, seemed like a waste to take if off knowing in a few hours he was going to put it back on again.
His parents, once again were none the wiser about last night's trip either, and as a bonus, had no idea about today's little excitement either. In a way, he was almost sad that they shared so little in common and interaction, but on the other paw, he was certain that such a relationship with his parents would quickly doom him.
He hung his backpack undercover in the back yard to dry out, the insides of it water proof, ensuring that his less than sensitive school books were fine, those he placed on his floor in a neat little stack next in a corner of the darkened room. His parents would not be home for several hours, so after a little arguement with his own brain, he fired up HYDRA and spent the waiting time by replying to a few of the forum posts he noted this morning.
But when HYDRA was up he wasted little time in logging back in. This time he turned his eyes to the 'warehouse' section, a section of HYDRA dedicated to the buying and selling of gear that was essential for a shifter's survival. Nearly everything could be obtained here for some price or another, not all of it in money. Salen clicked through the offers, then clicked out. He made it a point to check for gear he may want each day. After that he clicked back to Communication. Vexin was the only other one online, and Salen wondered if he ever logged off.
As Vexin said his hellos, a thought popped into his head, and he brought up a copy of Zennmap for a second along with another document of IP addresses and corrisponding names.
"Vex, where did they take Ash?" he typed out quickly, his mind rapidly falling into activity mode. His fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, filling the room with a clickclickclick sound as he waited. Finally, the response came.
"Level 2 in the Delta Compound. I hope you're not doing what I think you're doing..."
"And yet, you aren't telling me to stop." Salen quickly replied, knowing he had the backing of Vexin on this. Whether that was because Vexin knew Salen was going through with this no matter what and wasn't going to let him do it alone or if he truely wanted to rescue Ashmir, he didn't know. He didn't give it much thought either as he found the IP address which went with the Delta Compound and started an intense sniffing of the target network. "Sniffing in progress."
"What's going on?" Someone else added, newly arrived and Salen blinked for a minute trying to guess who they were before looking to the user's bar. Baru5 was the new name. Nope, never heard of him.
"Glow here is flexing his fingers over Delta." Vexin noted, and Salen could almost hear Baru5 get just that bit closer to his screen.
"Ashmir, I presume." Baru5 replied and Salen instantly responded with the answer as the Zennmap started displaying a long list of terminals, servers, printers and other objects networked and a very short list of ports
"Sniffs done. 142 terminals, 5 servers, a printer for every floor." He rapidfired out, bringing up remote desktop next and entering the address for his offsite terminal he'd had set up for just this purpose, followed by it's password. "Going remote now." he added underneath his last message.
"Ports?" Vexin asked, figuring there must be at least one if Salen had already switched to his offsite terminal remotely.
"Enough." Salen typed back with a smile and then had a quick look at the Delta Compound's network page, letting out a little hiss to relieve the tension in his body as he went looking for password hashes on the external access server he'd connected to. Quickly rebooting the server and using it's own hardware recovery software against it, he nabbed the password SAM files.
Coming back to the HYDRA window, he noticed two other were now online, just watching.
"Got the SAM files for the EAS. Running the rainbow table..." He blinked as it reported finished a few seconds later. Checking that it wasn't a false positive, he chuckled at his terminal's own power. "Done."
"You can't be serious..." Baru5 noted as Salen went back to his remote terminal and tried the password, gaining admin access to the server itself.
"Oh yes I can. EAS server password is BeN2i, for reference." He blinked and had another look at the remote terminal's screen, noting something odd. "Sorry, make that the password for full administrative control."
"You're kidding..." Vexin typed out slowly as Salen went hunting for the holding cells within the network, jumping first to the building's second level. In the first room, he found what he went looking for, and immdeatly looked away, setting his terminal to record for a few minutes before disconnecting completely, and uploading the recording to HYDRA.
"Found him..." Salen forced out slowly. "Video's up, they're torturing him."
The communication's box was more or less silent for a minute or so, before Vexin finally typed up. "Glow's gone this far. I'm not leaving him there alone. I'm going to get blueprints of Delta Compound, come hell or high water." Salen smiled, with this, they'd get Ashmir out for sure. The others currently online quickly noted their support after that, saying that they'd do their best to get information, while Baru5 confirmed he'd get guard postings and scope the base out tonight. It was nearly 7 when the sound of an engine rolled into the driveway, signalling Salen that he'd run out of time.
"Be online tomorrow, shutting down now." he quickly typed and watched the goodbyes scroll the page up and then he disconnected and shut HYDRA down, just as the front door opened.
The storm had only grown heavier and heavier throughout the time Salen had spent at dinner with his parents an hour after they had returned home. The atmosphere inside the dining room could hardly be called silent thanks to the storm pounding down outside, but it was at the very least quiet as it usually was. The silver dragon didn't know which of his parent dragons had suggested the idea that dinner should be eaten in silence, but he was certainly very greatful for it in the nights past.
His mind wondered during and after his family's meal, the heavy storm outside helping his idle thoughts wonder freely, helping to settle his body down before he surely stressed it once more with tonight's adventure. But he couldn't help his own subconscious reactions to the weather outside, everytime he gazed out a window, his wings fluttered in protest at the thought that he might even try to fly in such horrid weather. The time it took for his parents to eventually retire to their bedroom started to grate on his nerves a little as it always did. Bidding them goodnight, he quickly made his way back to his own room and locked the door behind him with a soft click.
It was riding on eleven-thirty, and Salen shifted the curtain and took a quick peek outside at the backyard. There were deep puddles in the grass, the drains situated about the yard keep the lawn from flooding entirely. While his shoes and everything else were sure to be soaked through and through, there was almost no chance he'd be heard in this weather. Thankfully, his other backpack was completely waterproof, keeping it's contents and the bag itself safe. While he wasn't particularly concerned about the bag itself, it was what was in it that he was a bit worried about. The folder within had taken him months to decrypt in their entirety and he didn't relish the thought of doing it all over.
He reached underneath his shirt and pulled the box out, flicking it open and grabbing his keys in a single fluid motion, slipping the second silver one into the armoured draw, opening it slowly, letting the well oiled slides do their work as Salen grabbed his chest holster first, clipping that over his shoulder and across his chest, securing it so it wouldn't flip or shake about while he ran. His paw next gripped the cold steel frame of his Baretta, letting the weight of the weapon sit in his paw for a second or two, in awe of what it could do with so little effort.
Then, he momentarily ended the silence by scooping up one of his three magazines and slipping it into the gun with the soft sound of metal sliding against well oiled metal followed by a deep click as it locked into place. He pulled back on the pistol's slide a little to check that there was a round in the chamber and let it go once he saw the little golden glint of one. Finally, he flicked it's safety into 'off' and holstered the silenced Baretta in the holster, swiftly covering the fact it was there with his jacket after snatching it from under the desk and slipping it on, half zipping it up so his Baretta was still within easy access. He'd have to clean it when he got back he thought, especially after the soaking it was going to get tonight.
Grabbing his backpack and slinging it over his back and straighing the straps, he took a quick look at his watch, watching it tick over. 11:59pm, it read.
Time to get moving.
Quickly patting himself down, making sure he had everything, he took a deep breath and shut his eyes, letting the power within him well up and change him, his wings reforming into his scales, his eyes changing colour to a soft blue, his scales changing into red fur, his tail shortening and growing far more fluffly. His clothes changed to fit his new form as his frame changed, a not unwanted side effect of the shifting power. As soon as he felt the last of the changes stop, he opened his eyes, looking at his new paws. Reaching under his jacket with his right one with a swish of his new furred tail he felt the weight of the Baretta in it's holster, getting used to the new feel for a few seconds. He wouldn't have to get used to it for long. He could only hold any form different from his own for a couple of hours at most. Holding it longer exhuasted him terribly.
As his watch ticked over to 12, he pulled back the curtain carefully and opened the window slowly, careful to not make any noise and climbed out, almost instantly getting soaked through and through by the amazingly heavy rain, his new fur matting and sticking to his flesh. He shut the window and locked it with one paw, the other holding onto the wooden vine stand as he put the keys back into his lanard box and put it back underneath his shirt. Dropping to the ground below with a soft oof as he landed, he regretted his choice of forms for tonight. His fins... ears flicked as he gazed to the fence connecting his home to the neighbour's yard. He turned to the right and began to jog as he rounded the corner.
The gate seperating the front yard from the back yard was only a metre and a half tall, but well secured, and Selan did not yet have it's key. Aside from that fact, he knew the gate was not well maintained and it screeched painfully loud whenever opened. So, he simply jumped right at, grabbing the wooden top edge of it and used his momentum to swing the rest of his now furred frame over, hitting the other side with a splash on the soaked ground. From there, he hit the streets
Thankfully, the weather and the time of night combined kept the streets completely clear which let him jog without incident, letting his mind keep it's focus on his form and his location within his mental map of the town. His breathing came in steady breaths of air as he jogged though the rain, his body and clothing already as wet as it was ever going to get, so walking through the weather made no sense at all.
The jog from home to park took a little under 45 minutes, his breath coming out in pure white mist, his frame shivering a little subconsciously. "Never again..." Salen muttered to himself, the weather ensuring that nothing else would hear him. "A furred creature in weather like this?" anSwer must have surely been looking at the weather forecast when he choose his form for tonight. He'd certainly do that in future...
The park was quite dark, only a few lights scattered across it's huge surface area, giving a few patchy spots of light surrounded by deep, inpenetrable shadowy darkness which combined with the massive storm, would ensure that he remained almost invisible until he wished to be seen. Salen knew the big oak in G-4 where he was heading to was just across the park from this streetside entrance. He slipped into the darkness the trees provided from the streetlights and he quickly vanished from all view into the darkness, his natural element.
The rain hammered against the trees above, the leaves providing little in the way of protection for his soaked frame, only seeming to make the raindrops bigger. The sound was eerie, the atmosphere left only two types of feeling. The hunters and the hunted. The silver dragon turned red fox creeped padded silently through the darkness, the former in everyway. His eyes picked up on a glint somewhere to his left just at the edge of his vision and he turned to look, cursing the fox form once more as the cause of the glint was a green wingless dragon, duffle bag in hand, leaning against a large oak tree. Normally, he would have spotted him a mile off.
Raising himself from his half crouch to a normal walking stance, something far less hostile, he broke from the pitch darkness and into the soft glow of the light overlooking the large oak, the dragon's eyes fixing on the fox's instantly as he approached. As the two came together, the dragon extended his free paw, to which Salen gripped and shook enthuastically.
"It's a wonder I don't take this form more often" anSwer said, the sound of the storm making sure that no one or no thing but Salen could hear him. "I could smell wet fox from a mile away!" he joked with a chuckle, one whch Salen had to echo.
"Cruel! It's freezing! I'm freezing! I don't even know what it feels like yet I'm freezing!" The dragon-turned-fox replied, anSwer finally releasing his paw.
"I heard what you did to Delta, nice job!" the green muzzle curved into a grin, "but before you get any more waterlogged, perhaps we should get down to business!"
Salen couldn't agree more. He pulled the waterproof bag off his back, and quickly unzipped it, making sure to cover it with his body as he did, lest it be completely filled before he even got the precious folder out.
"All pages completely decrypted as you requested, along with my decrypt notes, method and the key of encryption for future reference," Salen declared with some pride in his own skills, watching anSwer's grin widen. "The folder's sealed and waterproof, so they'll be safe until you can get them back somewhere safe."
anSwer carefully grabbed the folder in both paws and opened his own duffle bag, slotting the folder within it, and pulling something black and somewhat black striped out of it, and offering it to Salen, and then it was his turn to smile as he wrapped his paws around the pro-offered object.
"And as you requested, a Level III Grade kevlar vest." anSwer said, watching Salen's response, the words kid and candy store coming to mind. "It'll stop 5.56-mil at 8 metres, 9-mil at 3. One-point-seven kilos and it won't hurt your fluidness one bit. I really can't believe you've been without one for so long." he added as Salen slipped the bullet proof vest into his backpack and zipped it up, slinging it onto his back.
"I've always had my scales." he replied with an idle shrug, ears flicking as a huge thunderclap sounded over them, echoing in the sky for seconds afterwoods and making the ground shake with the force.
"Heh. You dragons. Hey, if there's anything else you ne-" anSwer suddenly fell silent as his own fins flicked in the air, hearing something that Salen's current form's ears weren't sensitive enough to detect. anSwer's voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible over the storm. "You hear that?"
Salen shook his head and pointed a finger at the matted fur on his muzzle and looked out towards the dark. Again he cursed his form, he couldn't see anything in the shadows. His face must have given away his thoughts because the anSwer made a little motion with his paw to get Salen behind him, to which he was almost enternally gratefull that it had been the dragon to suggest it, not himself. A paw snaked its way into his jacket, pressing against the cold wet steel of the Baretta, while anSwer slung the duffle bag across his back by it's shoulder strap.
There was a cracking of a branch, there, in the darkness to the left, both muzzles turned at once and then bolted as hard as they could in the opposite direction into the darkness as the ground and all around them lit up with a large bolt of lighting above, bright enough that it penetrated even the foilage about them.
There was a loud hiss back near the oak, followed by two more just like it, just as the light was beginning to fade. Two metallic twangs sounded from tree on either side of Salen as he ran. But there was no third tawng, only a near yelp of pain as his left arm lit up like fire as something metal shot right through the edge of his flesh, slicing through it. Moments later, there was a muted thud and a splash, anSwer dropping heavily to the ground mid stride.
Salen's paw reacted instinctively, gripping the Barretta tightly and drawing it from it's holster, sliding in to a stop and half prone position, covering himself in mud and water in the process as he brought the silenced handgun to bear on the oak. There! A shilloutte, humanoid. His finger pulled the trigger twice without further thought. Two somewhat muted bangs sounded, the rain turning into mist around the end of the barrel as it recoiled with the shots, two soft plops sounding less tha a moment later as the golden shell casings landed in the puddle he had skidded to a stop in.
The figure dropped with an echoing scream of pain.
Salen took a deep breath, letting it out in a heavy pant, not realising he had been holding it, as beside him, the green dragon's body reformed into that of a winged, feathered gryphon, a bloodied metal dart sticking out of his back. Holstering the gun before he... killed... anyone else, he grabbed the dart with his right paw and yanked it out of anSwer before it could deliver anymore of its payload. Looking at it, he was too late, it was empty. He tossed it into the underbrush and pressed two fingers against the gryphon's neck, looking for a pulse. Slow... but it was steady.
He gasped out a sigh of relief and raised his left arm to his eyes. His jacket was torn apart right above his elbow, the material already stained with his blood. His mind quickly put two and two together. The dart merely grazed him, hit anSwer for full effect. He blinked the rain out of his looked againat the wound, noting the mud covering himself and his deep wound, much deeper than a simple graze with a dart rifle. Whatever it was was far more powerful than anything standard.
Quickly his mind leapt back to the more pressing situation. That man wouldn't have been alone. Whoever he was, he had to have friends. His wound hurt and needed treatment, but it wasn't life threatening. he had to get himself and anSwer out of here. He shook his head roughly as his eyes began to shut. He must have gotten a hit of the dart's payload as well.
Quickly he grabbed the gryphon's arms, grunting at how heavy he was, hissing as his left arm protested the action, he hauled him over his shoulders with his bag, and holding him tightly, ran in the other direction as fast as he could, the adrenalin of the pain and the dash keeping his mind active. He didn't have much choice. He ran back home, anSwer in tow.
But even moving as quickly as he could, it was still nearly an hour's trip, the same storm that kept him hidden on the way to the park he praised again and again as it kept anyone from venturing out even at this late hour. It was just past 2:30 am by the time Salen had managed to return home. His vision was growing a little hazy, his arm burning as the gate posed the first problem to getting back inside.
Looking up and down at it, and then around the place for other options, he shook his head mournfully. He'd have to use the front door, and hope the storm was loud enough not to wake his parents. Trodding back to the front porch, he pulled the lanard out with his left paw biting his tongue to keep himself from hissing and whimpering at the pain it caused him. The second... no, third long gold one, that opened the front door. He slipped it into the lock and tried to turn it with no luck. He tried the other direction, nothing either.
He let out another gasp and shook his head rapidly. It WAS the second one. Slipping it into the lock, he proved this to himself as the door clicked unlocked. Keeping the keys in his paw, he turned the knob and pushed the door in, cringing.
Silence. The front door was well oiled, it didn't make so much as a peep as it opened and Salen quickly slipped inside, shutting and locking it behind him. He climbed the stairs slowly as the rain thundering off the roof hid his heavy exhuasted panting. Taking a right at the top, a little down the hallway, his door. He knew which key this was, the blue one. He was inside a moment later.
He let out a deep sigh of relief for the safety that only his room could provide. Carefully setting anSwer down on his bed, not caring that he was going to soak it through. The duffle bag he dumped in the window corner of his room, out of the way, dumping his own backpack next to it. His form shimmered rather suddenly as he dropped the shifted form for his true one without much care, biting his tongue hard to keep himself screaming out as his scales reformed, giving the wound fresh nerves to torture, managing to keep himself to a pained whimper.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he slipped out once more from his room and into the bathroom, grabbing a towel from the rack and wiping up all the water he had left on the floor returning, leaving it as it was when he had first left the house. Replacing the towel on the rack he took a quick look over his scaled body in the mirror, the blood stain around his wound having grown quite a bit since he last looked.
Slipping quickly back into his room and locking the door behind him, he tore off the now ruined jacket, discarding the holster somewhat more carefully onto the floor until he could move it later. Then, he stripped, shifting his absolutely soaked clothes into a corner until he could hang them out to dry later, quickly grabbing a replacement set, blinking at his quickly deminishing clothing supplies for the week, wondering how he'd explain this.
Shaking the thought from his head, Salen snatched the first aid kit he kept stashed in his cupboard quickly setting to washing his elbow clean of the mud and whatever happened to be loaded in the dart, hissing lightly before he patched a guaze strip over it and bandaged it over, holding it in place.
He shook his head again as his vision started to grow a little fuzzy once more, standing up and looking to the gryphon with a little groan. Unlike Salen, he'd surely get hypothermia if he remianed in those soaked clothes. He shook his head a little, and made quick work of it, trying to be done as quickly as possible. Stripping the gryphon down he also patched over the much smaller wound in anSwer's back, before tucking the sleeping gryphon under the covers to preserve his dignity when he awoke.
Shifting to quickly peek out the past the curtain to make sure there was no one out the window, Salen grabbed his holstered Baretta and opened the armoured draw, pulling the magazine out of the weapon and safing it before placing it inside. He replaced the two fired rounds from the magazine before putting it and the two others in the draw along with the gun. The holster soon followed and then he shut and locked it. Then he quickly woke his computer up from sleep mode and logged in, booting up HYDRA as soon as it hit the desktop. Nothing else. His head swung back and forth impatiently as he waited for it to load. When it finally did, he typed in a 6-digit panic code and then his password.
This time, with the addition of the panic code, HYDRA booted straight into Communication mode, and Salen's username was written in bold caps, along with 'EMERGENCY' written next to it. But before he could type, someone else beat him to the punch. Vexin.
"Situation?" he had obivously seen and heard his own alert message as every user got when someone logged in with the panic code and was cutting right the chase.
"Secure. We were attacked in the park, one man with some sort of high powered dart rifle. anSwer's unconscious, I'm hurt but alright. He got most of the traquillizer, I think I got some of it as well." Salen hammered out merely by instinct, just as Ashmir had taught him.
"What happened?" Another user asked, who just went by Pause.
"I don't know! We met in the park for an exchange in the park. anSwer heard something, so we bolted, that's when the guy started shooting. He got me in the arm, it went on to hit him proper. I... I think I killed the guy..." Salen's typing slowed as he finished, his mind fully coming to terms with what he may just have done.
"Easy..." Vexin replied, "If you didn't, he would have gotten you as well as anSwer. You saved two lives here. You pack with gloves, yes?" Salen nodded and then paused for a second and then typed in his answer realising his mistake.
"And I also assume you were both in shifted forms?" Salen again nodded and then shook his head rapidly, trying to clear it, typing his reponse once more.
"Then all they'll get are two clean bullets and blood for two people who don't exist in any system." Pause added before Vexin could reply. Salen knew that shifted forms had different blood to that of their true forms, but his mind really needed the assurance.
"Will you be safe there?" Vexin wrote up instead.
"We'll be safe here," Salen replied, looking to anSwer before looking back to the monitor again. "I know what you're thinking and it's a bad idea. Whoever it was didn't follow me back from the park, but they'll be looking for anything susicpous. We can handle ourselves."
"Alright. I'll be listening to the airbands for your dead man." Pause said and Salen blinked slowly at the statement, not sure of it was of any consquence.
Slowly he typed. "Guys, heading out. Log back in at 7pm... if not, we're in trouble." and logged out without waiting for any responses. Fumbling about his backlit keyboard for the Windows Key and L to lock his terminal, he looked about the room slowly.
"J...just a little nap..." He mumbled to himself as the small amount of traquilizer in his blood did it's job and the silver dragon collapsed off his chair with a soft thud, asleep.