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Chapter IX: Laugh Out Loud

"Come on bro! I'm right here! You know you want this! Hahahaha!"

Lance couldn't bear to look at his brother, not like this. He tore his gaze away from the containment cell built especially to nullify Caleb's powers as an Outsider with the addition of the anti-signal device designed to nullify effects of Caleb's laughter transforming anyone within earshot range. Apparently, you couldn't create a generic nullification field like with supers for Outsiders. Each Outsider had a unique 'tune'. After working with Caleb for so long, the FBI Agent Bren and his wiz kid Eilliot had developed the containment field that was especially designed to keep Caleb's weapons from activating. Apparently, they couldn't keep him from making weapons quite yet but at least they could stop his weapons from becoming dangerous.

Not that he was actually bent on making anything.

He turned away from the scene of his brother pressing himself against the glimmering barrier, big, black cock drooling cum. The entire cell was filled with the stuff. It killed him that part of him wanted to be in there with Caleb, to take that huge monster cock into himself but at the same time, the sweet, considerate, smart kid that had been his brother was turned into a monster.

"Please tell me we're closer to finding a cure."

Mary shook her head sadly. "Elliot and Bren are working hard. We've got scientists from all over the US working on this. If this is the core Gene Stealer strain that made Gnoll, then we might have a weapon against the hyenas. But..."

"How long will it take!?" Lance howled, turning away from the cell and banging the wall with his fists. "My brother is in there!"

In the moments of lucidity Caleb had - mostly after orgasm - he had told them what Gnoll had said. But within a few minutes, he was back to wanting to fuck and jacking off madly. If anything, that assured Lance that Caleb was well and truly inside that beast, still fighting for control. But he feared the beast was winning.

"How're things at home?" she asked.

"Bad." He ran a paw down his face wearily. "Mom is worried sick and Dad is out constantly covering Feral Steel's ass. That super has gone on a fucking vendetta against these hyenas! It's even gotten to the point where he's rounding up any hyenas and inspecting them personally! Anyone even remotely over the average height is pulled in for questioning and DNA analysis. He's chucking those devices Elliot made to stop the hyenas from transforming everywhere! He dropped one in the middle of the street and practically caused a road accident! My dad is barely at home trying to make sure the media doesn't blow this out of proportion."

"That's a little racist..."

"What do you expect!?" Lance shouted angrily. "The entire Raptors football team was transformed into those... those things and are being contained! Most of the people on the bleachers were infected as well! The city is in a fucking panic!" He shook his head worriedly. "I'm not sure how long I can ride the whole 'Caleb was on the team and is one of things now' story..."

"It's... sort of true. He is on the team and he is one of them now... Not necessarily related..."

"You're not helping!"

"Sorry," she replied meekly. Her eyes remained fixated on Caleb who had gone back to using his bed as a sex doll.

"I thought you were an empath. Can't you tell what'll make people feel better?"

"Not when the situation is that your brother has been turned into a wild, massive hyena with an overactive libido, little self-control and the ability to transform you into one of them by just listening to his laughter."

Lance whimpered loudly and somehow managed to gaze back at Caleb. His brother let out a barking laugh of triumph as his cock spewed another gallon of cum onto the bed. "Is it bad that a part of me wants to join him...? Just... be like him and be in his arms?"

"I'm sorry," was all she could say.

Lance grunted and turned away from the cell.

"Awww! Come on, Lance! Sorry I didn't give you much of a show! Give me ten minutes! Come on! Don't be like that!"

He fought back the tears and stormed through the hallways of the Facility until he came to Elliot's room. The place was nerd heaven and it just made him all the madder. Then again, the orca had an enormous cup of coffee sitting beside him and an IV line hooked up. He didn't think the guy had slept since Friday.

And it was currently Monday.

"Um... what's with the IV line?" he asked.

"Caffeine."

"And the coffee?"

"I just like the taste. Plus caffeine."

Lance looked up at the screens hovering over Elliot's face. There were dozens of DNA strands floating everywhere. He saw one marked as 'C. Hale' and another as 'C. Hale - Gnoll Strain'. They looked vastly different.

"I'm afraid to ask... but any progress?"

Elliot sighed heavily and turned in his seat. The bags under the orca's eyes were so big that they would have to be thoroughly checked at airport security to be deemed legal. "It's hard... His entire genetic structure has been _completely_altered. I can barely make out any similarities between his original extract and his current and those are just those shared by all furs. Repairing the damage... It'd be impossible!"

Lance was about to snap at him to keep trying but then he realised that the orca was still trying. "Thanks for trying to change that."

Elliot gave him a shaky smile. "I like you. Muscles just snaps at me and Barbie tries to be smart because she can read my mind. You're like a cute puppy. I think I'll call you Puppy."

He offered the orca shaky smile. "Whatever makes you comfortable, man." He nodded at the screens again. "I don't suppose there's anything I can do to help, is there?"

"Unless you have an in depth understanding of lupine genetics, the level of understanding that apparently went into transforming someone like Caleb into what he is now or manage to capture Gnoll, then no."

Elliot sighed. Then, with a ferocious cry, he swept his arms across his console, sweeping all the toys and papers off in a rage.

"It's so fucking frustrating!" he roared, slamming his fists into the console. "They shouldn't be able to do this! There is not 'panacea of transformations'! They shouldn't be able to just give off a signal that rewrites the genetic code of anyone that can hear it or shoot someone with a dart and turn them into a hyena! It has to be calibrated to their existing genetic code! You can't make something out of nothing!"

Lance approached the orca and gently prised him from his seat. "Look, I think you need some sleep, man." He pulled the IV from Elliot's arm and pushed the coffee cup away. "Get some rest and come back it later with a fresh mind." He let out a soft chuckle. "And you're wrong, you know. Superheroes can make something out of nothing. Look at Feral Steel. He can conjure metal out of nothing."

Elliot's eyes suddenly lit up and he straightened. "You're right... I've been looking at this all wrong!" He spun towards Lance, gripping the wolf's arms. "What if it isn't scientific? What if... What if it's supernatural!"

The orca jumped back onto his computer, tapping away.

Lance smiled and pulled him off the seat again. "No. You need your rest. Come on."

"But! But! But!"

"Just go, wiz kid. Caleb isn't going anywhere and neither is the football team."

He pulled Elliot to the bed that was covered in comic books, dozens of collectible items and lots and lots of scientific journals, mostly on genetics. He pushed them all aside and forced Elliot to lie down. The instant the orca hit the bed, he was out. As much as he wanted a cure for his brother, Lance wanted the cure to be perfect not some rush job. This was Caleb's genes they were talking about.

He left Elliot's chamber and went back to the central area of the Facility. Caleb was being kept in his own armoury and he hadn't been to Mary's training room yet. Taking it all in, he was still a little overwhelmed. His kid brother was an FBI Agent and an Outsider! All his disappearances, all his mysterious injuries and even his little road accident were all attributed to his job as a semi-super.

And now... Now he was a raving beast unable to control his hormones and had the power to transform anyone who wasn't a super or Outsider into another manic hyena.

At the central area of the Facility, he found Bren the clone-tiger standing beside Mary, waiting for him. Their expectant gazes weren't good. They had informed him about the Gene Stealers and their operations.

The Gene Stealers...

A group of seemingly small-time terrorists who infected people and turned them into others like them. Thralls were just clones of the Gene Stealers, people who had been injected with something that made them think exactly like the Gene Stealer that served as their progenitor. But these hyenas... they weren't just Thralls. They were sentient. Something more. Lance just prayed that Caleb wasn't permanently like this... or that his mentality hadn't been permanently changed.

"What's up?" he asked, trying to sound perky but his voice broke in the process.

Mary offered a faint smile and Bren just remained stoic.

"You need to take your own advice, Lance," Mary said kindly. "You need to go home and rest. Your entire family is worried about you. They're afraid you might get turned as well."

"But Cale..."

"He will be... contained," Bren stated. "You need to go home. At the same time, I need you to consider this: you are a civilian. You have no powers or ties to us whatsoever. After this, I must erase your memories."

Lance went rigid. "Wait! What!?"

Mary moved towards him, gripping his paw lightly. "I'm sorry, Lance. But you could be a liability. If a Gene Stealer got to you, they could know all about us and -"

"You assholes!" he roared, yanking his paw away from Mary and pointing it back at Caleb's armoury. "My brother is in there, a hyena! He is crazy and for fuck's sake, he isn't himself! I love him and he's my brother! You expect me to just brush this under the rug after all this is done!"

"You won't have to because you won't remember," Bren responded.

"Fuck you! I -"

"LAAAAAAANCE!"

They all froze, turning towards the armoury.

"LAAAAAANCE!"

It was Caleb... but it didn't sound like a lusty moan. It was... mournful, desperate. Lance could tell when his brother was in need and bolted straight into the armoury. He shot past other smaller containment fields where the multitude of weapons that Caleb had created over the six or so months he had been active. There were hundreds of them.

He couldn't imagine how many times Caleb had lied to him or the rest of his family.

He skidded to a halt in front of Caleb's containment field. The hyena was panting, resting against the containment field, one paw on the glittering shield and his cock only semi-hard.

"Caleb...? Is that you...?"

His brother offered him a crooked smile. "Sort of... Fuck this is messed up..."

Mary and Bren came rushing in. "Caleb!"

"Hey guys..." Caleb said. "Sorry... I should've been more careful..."

It really was him!

"Cale!" Lance exclaimed, rushing towards his brother.

"Stay back!" Caleb roared, making him freeze just a few feet from the containment field. "I... I'm not in control... Not all the way... Fuck..." He growled and his other paw went towards his cock. It was hardening again. "Shit... It's strong, guys... I really want to fuck something..."

"But you're you," Lance answered with relief. "Thank god... Caleb... I love you..." He reached out, and pressed a paw against the field. Caleb managed a shaky smile and pushed his own paw over Lance's. His brother's dwarfed his own.

"Listen," Caleb grunted, turning to the others. "Gnoll... He used the original serum to turn him into a Gene Stealer on me."

"You told us that," Bren answered.

"I did? Shit... It's hard to remember... All I can remember is..." He growled again. Lance could hear his brother's balls gurgle for release. "Before... Before the shit hit the fan... I ran into Gregory in the toilets after the first quarter... He said something... Something that Gnoll echoed. I think... I think Gregory is Gnoll!"

Mary frowned deeply. "Are you sure? When we first encountered Gnoll, his thoughts, his emotions were nothing like Gregory's. I couldn't feel any part of our friend in him."

"Yeah but how long have you been with him?" Caleb began with a chuckle. That chuckle quickly evolved into a deathly cackle and then a full blown hyena laugh. Lance's heart broke a little when he saw his brother throw his head back, giving fully into the hyena side of him until -

WHAM!

Caleb slammed his forehead against the shield.

"Cale!"

"Ow..." Caleb muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry... Only way to stop me..." He groaned softly. His cock was fully erect again, all sixteen inches of it. "Look... Mary, I really think Gregory is Gnoll. You... You need to find him."

"Caleb," Bren began, arms folded. "We need more than that to go on."

Mary played with a strand of blonde hair. "Only the football team on _our_side were fully transformed... Why?" She tapped the side of her head, thinking deeply. "Gregory got Alex hospitalised on Friday because he was hitting on the football players. Gregory, not Alex. Alex defended him. Could it be...?"

Lance caught on. "Are you saying that Gregory was already starting to transform the team back then? That's why they gave in so quickly to the transformation?"

"Maybe..." Mary lifted her eyes to meet Caleb's gaze. "I saw some of the Bomber players also fully transform, though."

"Gregory..." growled Caleb. He began panting, unable to proceed with the conversation. He pushed away from the field and retreated to the far corner of the room. It killed Lance watching his brother hide in the corner in shame while fapping uncontrollably.

"Gregory... Gregory..." Mary murmured. "Caleb met him shortly after the first quarter ended... That's an entire quarter where he could've been anywhere else... There's no guarantee he was the announcer the entire time..." She turned to Bren. "I think it's still worth investigating."

The tiger frowned. "I am not entirely convinced. I would rather not take Feral Steel's route and go randomly abducting hyenas and pulling them in for questioning. However, if you think it's a lead worth following, go for it. But I am not pulling you in without backup."

Mary's eyes brightened. "You mean?"

"Yes. Call Ben and Lars. After the fiasco at the football field, the Alpha Pack is fully behind us and Lars has decided to add another secret identity to his list. What his codename is still debatable."

"Great!" Mary grinned and turned towards Caleb. "Did you hear that, Cale? We've got allies!"

Caleb grunted and let out a thunderous 'Fuck yes!' as he came all over the wall, covering it in his sticky, white cum.

Lance was never more torn than he was at that moment. His body wanted to jump into that room, let Caleb transform him and take that huge cock into him but his mind and heart pulled him back. He wanted his brother back... not the hyena he had become.

"You should head home, too Lance," Bren advised. "I'll take care of Elliot."

"Do you ever sleep?" Lance asked.

"Not really. Whenever one of my bodies decides it's time for a nap, I just jump into one of the tubes for my bodies, put the current frame into slumber and transfer my consciousness into another."

"You people are freaky."

"We're the government."

Lance had to smile at that.

He caught a ride with Mary back home. It was the middle of the night and West California High was due to reopen tomorrow. In a world of supers, it was normal for high schools or public gathering places to be attacked by something - anything really - and it was part of regulations to have a disaster recovery plan. The super-insurance was also a very big thing and already, the damage caused was repaired. Mary took the roundabout route back home and there, passing by the high school. There, they saw the stadium was back in working order. Feral Steel's metal conjurations had all been removed.

Lance couldn't bear to look at it and instead turned his gaze towards Mary.

"I thought Outsiders couldn't be turned into Gene Stealers..." he murmured softly.

It was a question he had been asking over and over again for the past few days. Mary had been patient with him during the entire time and explained. "They are immune to the transformative effects of other Gene Stealers that makes Thralls... or these new, sentient Thralls. Like a larval transplant from Spider Queen, scratches or bites from Wendigo, Dragon Knight's charm or Shark Tamer's hypnotism. But Caleb was injected by the serum that makes Gene Stealers. It's not the same."

Lance shook his head grimly. "So they've got more of this stuff...? More of the things that'll turn other guys into people like Gnoll?"

"Probably. But I don't think that they'll just throw it at anyone." Mary inclined her head to the side thoughtfully. "I remember Gnoll mentioning that he was originally an Outsider, just like Caleb and I. Maybe the Gene Stealers are looking for Outsiders? I've noticed that Caleb doesn't have the sonic powers Gnoll has. Maybe all the serum does is make them into something else and give them the mutagenic powers."

That was small comfort. His brother was still a hyena... A sexy hyena, yes, but that form just made Lance realise one thing: he wanted Caleb Hale. Not some overly buff, hyper-cocked sex beast. He wanted his brother. His brother... who was fighting so hard in that muscled shell to break free.

"Cale..." he whimpered softly.

Mary was silent. Then, just as they were about to turn into their street, she made an abrupt U-Turn that send Lance crashing to the side of her door.

"Hey! What's going on?"

"I just realised that there was someone else we should check up on," she said, zooming back towards the city. "Alex Connery. He's a friend of ours and he's the one that introduced us to Gregory. If Gregory is Gnoll then Alex should be in deeper than anyone else."

Lance flicked his ears at her, a smile crossing his features. "You like Greg, don't you?"

She blushed lightly and made another sharp turn just so that her golden blonde hair whipped past her features, hiding her face. "He's a nice guy. Hormonal but... innocent. At least from what little I got of him over the past few days. He's gay but I think I could turn him."

Lance had to laugh. "Wow. A millennium ago, I don't think anyone would ever consider the story of a girl turning a gay guy straight feasible."

"Hollywood has progressed pretty far these days."

Lance remained silent and leaned back, turning his gaze towards the skies. It was funny. He loved history and he recalled how a thousand years ago, being gay was like being born an Outsider now. You were ostracised, thought of as an abomination and threats of sterilisation where in the air. He couldn't imagine what Caleb went through every day just to hide who he was to the world. He was just trying to live his life and help people but those same people would just turn on him.

But Lance wouldn't let that happen.

Caleb was his brother... and more.

Mary drove up to the Westview Hospital, a place specially designed for _normal_people. There was another hospital, the Alliance Hospital near the Elemental Tower built for those people who were hit by superhero activity. It helped ease the pressure on any one hospital and screened for possible infections or budding superpowers.

Lance followed Mary into the receptionist desk where a kindly goat nurse turned her gaze towards them, smiling gently.

"How may I help you, dears?" she asked.

"We're here to see Alex Connery," Mary responded. "I know it's outside visiting hours and only family are allowed to -"

"Family?" the nurse responded. "Dear, you'd be the first person to see him."

Lance frowned. Shouldn't Alex's parents at least come to see him? It had been four days since the football game and Alex had been hospitalised before then. Any parent should've come to see him.

"What?" Mary asked, surprised. "But his father -"

"Honey, his father died two years ago."

Mary recoiled, making a horrified face and clutching her chest. Even Lance had to take a step back in surprise.

"Wait. So who's been paying for his tuition?" he asked. "His clothes? His home? Where has he been staying?"

The nurse shrugged and absently tapped at her computer. "He's in the system, dear. You know, ORION. The Orphaned Registry for the Isolated and Outcast Network."

Lance jogged his memory. ORION was developed centuries ago when the first supers began defending the world against their evil counterparts. With so much collateral damage, families tended to be lost and broken... a lot. Kids were left without parents and parents were robbed of their memories. As a result, the government alongside several superhero teams, developed ORION. It was designed to provide the financial support any normal kid would need if their families were hit by superhero activity. At least that was the original proposition.

Over the centuries, because of its success, ORION expanded to becoming a worldwide orphan registry. Child services sent orphans over a certain age to ORION. While kids needing adult supervision were still sent to foster homes, those of a certain age were given responsibility over their own homes and taught to care for themselves while still being provided funding to attend school. All expenses had to be written down and logged and sent weekly to government agencies so that their charges weren't dealing in drugs or expending funds on things that they shouldn't.

It was a highly successful programme. Three of the more recent presidents came from ORION. A few supers came from ORION too.

"Two years ago?" Mary asked. "What happened?"

The nurse shook her head sadly. "Sorry dear, that's confidential. However, since you're the only two here to see him..." She finished typing on her computer. The printer beside her buzzed and spat out two plastic cards. Timed passes. After a certain time, they would be deemed as invalid and security would come after them if the passes weren't returned past the patient zone of the hospital. "Here. You have one hour. He's on the third floor, fourth door on the right."

Lance took his pass and thanked her.

Mary took her as well and led the way up the stairs to the second floor.

In the silence of the stairwell, she said, "Alex lost his mother when she gave birth to him. His father was good to him and worked as security guard for hire. They lived a happy life. Two years ago, though, his father was assigned to a club to guard the place. Some guys, drunk and horny and much bigger than him, took him down and raped him. Having lost his dignity, his father committed suicide, unable to look into his son's eyes and remain the proud, strong man he had been."

Lance blinked. "How did you...?"

Mary tapped her temple lightly. "When I asked the nurse, I knew she wouldn't tell but she thought it. That was all I needed."

"I thought you needed time to get to know a person before you read their minds?"

"That's only if I want to read their thoughts passively. For you, I don't even have to focus and I know what you're thinking. But if I focus _really_hard, I can get into people's heads."

"Why didn't you do that when you were fighting Gnoll the first time?"

"Because I was busy trying to use it to keep myself from getting torn apart by Gnoll's lackeys. "

Lance wanted to snap at her; tell her that she should have tried harder. But he knew that would just be him lashing out with no real backing. Caleb and Mary were doing this as part of their job, yes, but they were helping. It was more than Lance did. Big strong Lance... the big brother... who promised his baby brother on the night of the game that not playing would be the only downside of his day...

Mary stopped at the door to the third floor, a small smile on her lips. "I appreciate the thought, Lance, but you are right. I should have tried harder." She shook her head sadly. "Sometimes I wish I was a fully-fledged super too. Outsider powers evolve slower than a super's. In a year, a super can develop new powers. For an Outsider, it might take five or even never. Caleb is lucky in that respect. He gets new powers all the time but they're random and limited to uses. Me... I can just read minds and hearts. Only recently can I truly passively read the minds of those close to me."

"You two make quite the team then, don't you?" Lance said, resting a paw on her shoulder. "Consistency versus uncertainty. Caleb doesn't know what he'll get and you always do."

She let out one, sarcastic laugh. "I suppose that's one way to look at it."

She pushed the door open and stepped over the large, green line that marked them as being in the patient zone. Their passes immediately activated meaning that they had exactly one hour to visit Alex before they were arrested.

As the nurse had instructed, fourth door on the right had the name 'Alex Connery' on the door. Lance peered through the window. Alex was awake, staring at the TV. Mary knocked lightly before pushing into the room. He had a sling on one arm and several bandages on his face to mask bruises and cuts but apart from that, he looked fine. Still, to think that he had been in the hospital for four days meant the damage was still extensive.

Alex's eyes widened when he saw them. "Mary! Oh my god! You're safe! Thank Christ!"

"Yeah," Mary responded with a faint smile, stepping up beside him. Like the hospital Caleb had been in, the room was completely white and designed to mark all evidence of tampering or contaminants. "We came here to make sure you were okay."

"Me!?" Alex exclaimed. "What about you guys? What about Lars? Ben? Caleb? Gregory? Were they at the game? Did... did they...?"

Mary shook her head. "Lars and Ben are okay... Caleb..."

Alex's eyes widened. "No... Not..."

Mary looked lost for words. Lance swallowed his own grief and gripped her shoulder tightly. "Yeah... He turned, man. He's trying to fight it but... it doesn't look good..."

Alex shook his head. "Fuck! This is some messed up shit!" Then his eyes widened and he turned back to them. "What about Gregory?"

"Actually..." Mary began, gripping Alex's hand lightly. "That's who we wanted to talk to you about. Has Gregory been hitting on the guys on the football team... a lot?"

Alex shrugged absently. "Well... Yeah. It's his 'All American Experience'. I know some of the guys shrugged and let him give them a blowjob here and there. Sometimes even out in the locker room for other guys to see. Honestly, I don't know why they were so freaked out on Friday... Must've been pre-game jitters."

Mary exchanged glances with Lance. He resisted the urge to nod.

"You don't think?" Alex began. "Oh come on! That's racist! Okay, he's a hyena and he's from Russia! That doesn't make him some... some... supervillain!"

"We're not saying that," Mary said gently, patting the young man's hand. "Look, you just rest up, okay? School resumes tomorrow. See you there?"

Alex shook his head. "Sorry. I'm still in here until Friday. Maybe in time for the game?" He tried to smile but failed. "I just hope that Caleb..."

"He will, buddy," Lance assured him, gripping his shoulder. "Caleb has and always will be a fighter. He's going to beat this thing. You just watch."

They gave their best wishes to the young man before leaving. They remained silent until they reached the stairwell.

"He's hiding something," Mary announced suddenly.

Lance jerked towards her, brow furrowed. "What? Are you sure? He seemed so honest." She gave him a pointed stare. "Right, right... Sorry. Empath. How can you tell?"

She frowned and glanced back towards the ward. "I've only known him for a little over two weeks but I've got a fairly good read on him. Not on the level of you or the Hales. Certainly not on the level of Caleb but enough to know that the fact that he just kept repeating 'Caleb' over and over in his head was enough to make me suspect he is hiding something."

Lance frowned. "You don't think...?"

"Actually," she said, smiling back at him. "Judging by his words and his thoughts... I think it's more like you have a little competition."

Lance's fur bristled. "That scrawny kid!? Caleb would never -" He coughed and cleared his throat. "Okay... Sorry, he's in the hospital but I know Caleb. He wouldn't go for that guy."

"Sure you do."

They handed their passes back to the receptionist and drove back home. Lance thanked Mary before returning to his own house. There, the family minus their father sat around the couch, watching the news anxiously. Lance took a few minutes to watch Feral Steel give another statement about the 'laughing menace' before heading upstairs, sandals on. He didn't forget constantly like Caleb did.

Caleb...

Lance entered his brother's room quietly and shut the door.

Seeing all the supposed collectible items that Caleb kept which were actually weapons he had created using his powers opened a tear in his heart. It explained all those times when he and Leon had snuck into Caleb's room and the younger wolf panicked when they had stolen something. He was protecting them all... even then.

Lance collapsed into Caleb's bed, bringing his brother's pillow against his muzzle and taking a long whiff for his scent.

That night, Lance cried himself to sleep.

*****

West California High was not in a good place. The entire football team had been changed overnight into sex-crazed hyenas and a fair few of the school population and their families were partway transformed. Counselling was provided but it would take more than just a few days to get over a supervillain attack.

Plus, with every supervillain attack - especially one from an anonymous source - there came the rampant suspicion and alienation. Gregory was given a wide berth in the hallways and no one wanted to be anywhere near him. Teachers were known to kick him out of class or outright refuse him entry. He wasn't the only one though. Every hyena in the school was singled out.

Complaints would be filed but how far would it go?

Lars knew the system. Teachers were meant to be professionals and they weren't allowed to single students out like that but they could throw in the 'for the safety of the students' card and they would have a reasonable defence. More than a few courts had ruled in favour of the defence because of that one reason.

He didn't believe Gregory was Gnoll. It was far too convenient. Superhero 101, the most obvious guy is never_the guy. Besides, the high school villain thing was clich辿 and most aspiring villains waited at _least until they were in college when their powers had developed more before they did something on a professional level. Unless they were desperate, in financial strife or something along those lines. Then again, more than a few would be villains went into the ORION program, took advantage of it and then began their villainy.

"I still don't think it's him," Lars said, gazing firmly at Mary. She sat across from him, her eyes narrowed at Gregory as the Russian hyena was shoved out of the lunch queue by a member of the lacrosse team.

"I'll have to disagree there," Ben muttered, his eyes also on Gregory. "Everyone is guilty unless proven otherwise."

"It's the other way around, wannabe."

Ben snarled at him for that comment. Lars had taken to calling Ben a 'wannabe' because he was a 'wannabe wolf'. That really got on the werewolf's nerves. Then again, Ben always had...

"Not for guys like me, Stubby."

"You fucking little -"

Mary lifted a hand, silencing them both. She shook her head and rose from her seat. "I can't get a read on him. There are too many people here. I need to get him to sit with us." She strode over to where Gregory was picking himself up.

She helped him to his feet and guided him to their table. Lars could feel the glares and scowled of everyone in the lunch room at them. On the far side of the cafeteria there were two tables occupied by the school's hyenas. People who didn't usually hang out together were forced to sit together because of high school peer pressure and world events.

"I do not understand," Gregory muttered as he sat down in his fake Russian accent. "I did nothing!"

"It's high school," Mary responded softly, her hand on his shoulder. "Just because..." Then she stopped. For a second, she was silent. Then... her eyes widened in horror.

Ben was instantly on edge, gripping his knife tightly. Lars was halfway out of his seat.

"Oh my god..." Mary whispered, her eyes wide. "It is you..."

Gregory suddenly obtained a dark smirk and turned his eyes towards her. "How's Caleb?"

Lars lunged at him, seizing the hyena's collar. "You sonofabitch! I'll kill you!" Half of the students in the room were staring at them.

"You can try," Gregory whispered. "But you know all I have to do is just giggle a little and I can turn this entire school into a bunch of rutting, fucking hyenas just like me. And you should know that my powers are far more developed than my Gen 1s. I can plant the signal in a person's mind, lying there dormant until a trigger is set off. Maybe all they need to do is laugh or recall a memory of me and they'll be_mine_. That's what I did with the first batch."

Growling, Lars refused to let go of the hyena. Mary gently prised his paws away from Gregory and he sat back down with a huff, his eyes flaring.

The hyena rested his elbows on the table, tenting his fingers and regarding them all curiously. "I knew you were an Outsider, Mary, but I didn't think these two were in on the secret too." His eyes darted to Lars and Ben. "I guess neither you nor Caleb were very good at keeping secrets."

"What the fuck do you want?" Ben sneered. "World domination? A harem?"

"It's like Caleb said," Mary responded, her eyes narrowed. "Anti-authority. You get off on turning big, buff guys into your personal sex slaves... And you're targeting a certain company to further Shark Tamer's plans. Plans he hasn't told you yet."

"Ah... A mind reader." Gregory glanced at her. "I should have known. Well, since you can see into my thoughts, why don't you tell these two idiots my grand master plan, hmmmm?"

It frightened Lars even more when Mary leaned back and looked horrified beyond belief. "You don't have one."

The hyena looked about to laugh but held it in. "Oh?"

"You're just getting your rocks off! You don't have a plan! You're just going along with the Gene Stealers because it's an end to your means... and that's... That's..." She narrowed her gaze, shaking her head. "I... I don't know... I can't..."

"I'm disappointed," Gregory said, sighing softly. "If you were stronger, like say, a fully-fledged super, you might just have been able to cut through my inherent defences and seen into my soul."

"Your...?"

Gregory let out one sharp laugh, making all three of them flinch. "Oh don't worry. I can control the signal unlike my Gen 1s." He lifted a finger and pointed it at Mary. "Shark Tamer is a genius. When he made me into what I am, he built powerful psionic defences around my mind. Nosy bees like you can read the surface, the unimportant stuff or the things I want you to think but everything else is confidential."

He tapped the side of his head. "See, we know supers gain their baseline powers because their conscious and subconscious minds are able to connect on an instinctual level so much so that both amplify one another. Supers are able to regenerate because the conscious mind directs the subconscious to hasten production of cells. They are able to react faster when using their super speed because the subconscious pushes the conscious to process stimulus faster. But memories and thoughts well..." He grinned at Mary.

"Part of the process involves the breaking down of the barriers between the two. Subjects become more... instinctual first and foremost as the rush just takes over their mind and they lose all restraint. But, as time goes, the conscious mind gains control again." He winked at Lars and Ben. "I'm willing to bet Caleb is just getting control again, isn't he?"

Lars tightened his fist, bending the fork in his paws.

"Pretty soon, he's be able to control himself completely. Eventually, he'll develop baseline superpowers and then change his own shape to be back to his usual, lupine self."

"What?" Ben demanded.

"It's part of the plan," Gregory said, waving a paw absently. "The Gene Stealers created the Thralls to test out various methods of infection and conversion. Complete clones of the Originals, infused with their memories, thought patterns and abilities but still holding some semblance of their former selves if only on a cosmetic level. You can call them... Generation Zero.

"But Generation 1 things get fun." Gregory grinned broadly, on the verge of laughing. Lars was prepared to stab the guy's throat if that happened. "We create individuals infused with our basic genetic structure but enhanced in such a way that they form the perfect bodyguards or army whichever you want. They get baseline superpowers and maintain their own individuality.

"And Generation 2... Well... that's when they get such control over this subconscious that they are able to alter their genetic structure to shift themselves back to their original forms."

Mary shuffled away from Gregory. "My god... You can have Gene Stealers everywhere..."

"And no one would be the wiser," snickered Gregory. "Then, of course, we have Generation 3... Where they all develop superpowers."

"What?" Lars demanded.

"Don't worry," Gregory said. "That part is still theoretical. We have to get to Generation 2 first. Of course, there's always Generation 4 afterwards!" He threw his head back. Lars lunged forward but Ben seized his arm.

The hyena grinned at him.

"Aren't we feeling murderous?"

"You fuck-shit," Lars snarled, sitting back down.

Gregory shrugged, his voice at a low whisper that not even anyone from a few tables away to hear. "Don't worry. You'll all become one of us soon. One day soon, we'll be able to convert supers too. It's going to be such a fantastic, fucking world."

"You're crazy."

"Maybe. I am a hyena, after all. It comes with the territory." Gregory's grin grew broader. "So I guess all that remains is what comes next, right?"

No one moved. Furs in the cafeteria were eagerly perking their ears. No doubt some of them had heard some fragments of their conversation. The entire open area was deathly still. All eyes were on them.

Boom!

The doors suddenly flung open. A swarm of men dressed in black suits and wearing sunglasses stormed into the cafeteria. Gregory smirked as the men flashed their FBI badges and began raising cameras and phones in front of people's eyes.

"Awww, Mary," Gregory said, gazing down at her hand. Lars peered over the table and noticed that Mary had her cell phone on with the contact set as 'Bren'. "Clever girl. But you know you can't stop me here, right? I'm a super. Your FBI goons can't defeat me."

"Yeah?" Ben growled, his eyes flashing red. "Well maybe a werewolf can."

Gregory's smirk faded. "A..." Then that smile returned. "Oh my... Mary, you Outsiders keep the most interesting company."

"Get used to it," snarled Ben. "The Alpha Pack is behind Mary and Caleb. You want to go about changing people? Well you do it through us and you can be sure that fucking copycats like you assholes don't even hold a candle to the original supers with transformation abilities!"

The hyena lost his smile and straightened. "I see. But a fight between us here will only get people hurt and you don't want that."

"You wanna bet?"

Mary lifted a hand, silencing Ben. "What do you propose?" she asked calmly.

"Let's take this to where it all started," Gregory answered without pause. "The Newport baseball field. Still currently under construction. Tonight. Say... eight o'clock?"

Lars thought fast. He could rally the Elemental Alliance there at that time easily. They could crush Gnoll easily. All of them together? It wouldn't be a problem. If only he could get them to listen...

"It's a date," Mary answered.

Gregory smirked and stood up. "Great. Bring as many people as you can. I'm sure Shark Tamer would just love to test out his serums on them. I'm not guaranteeing they'd work. Some of his failures are rather... gruesome. But hey, all in the name of science, right?"

He turned and swaggered out of the cafeteria. Before any of the other students could say or do anything, cameras and phones were flashing everywhere. Lars closed his eyes and tried to keep the shaking from his body. It wasn't that he was angry... but... scared. He didn't want to end up like Caleb... or a 'failure'.

Gregory explicitly said that the Gene Stealers were working on ways to convert supers.

What if they got him or anyone of the Elemental Alliance with those serums?

Supers wouldn't be safe.

No one would...

"Why the fuck didn't you do anything?" Ben snarled, eyes flashing at him.

Lars growled back and spoke in a low, harsh whisper. "Because that'd be stupid. He's going to go back to the Gene Stealers. He now knows you're part of the Alpha Pack! Do you know how stupid that is? They'll target your friends and family!"

A new wave of flashes hit to hide that new piece of information.

"My whole family is the Alpha Pack," Ben snapped back loudly. More flashes. "I have nothing to be scared of! And you! Your parents are supers too, aren't they?"

Lars flinched. That was a low blow. It was public news who Firebrand's parents were... and here he was preaching about their safety when they were more than qualified to defend themselves. It was... ironic really. The superhero who should've been selfless and just was hiding because his family who didn't care for him could be in danger when the supervillain who was loved dearly and privileged was the one doing all out for a friend.

The Doberman ducked his head, ears folded back.

"Still a fucking coward," Ben snarled angrily. "You may be a super but you're by no means a hero. Caleb can run circles around you."

"Don't bring Caleb into this!"

"This is all about Caleb!" Ben roared, slamming a fist into the bench. The blow made a dent and the FBI agents groaned. A few of them came over and asked them to take it outside while they cleared out the evidence of their powers.

Ben stood up gruffly and stormed out.

Lars just stared after him, shaking his head in wonder. "What? Is he after Caleb too?"

Mary shook her head. "No. Caleb has just been the only person to treat him like a true friend. Even after learning that he is Blood Wolf and seeing how he lived, Caleb just continued to treat Ben like Ben. Not as a supervillain, not as a werewolf or a kid from a rich family. They're good friends and Ben hates that Caleb has been turned into... into..."

Lars was in shock as Mary covered her mouth and let out a soft sob. She shut her eyes, a tear running down her cheek.

She wiped it away quickly. "I'm sorry. I've known Caleb since we were kids and seeing him like this..." Again she shook her head, puffing out her chest. "This is for him. I'm going to meet Gnoll out in the baseball field. I understand if you don't want to come, Lars. Just... Keep your family safe, okay?"

Lars froze... and just stood there as Mary hurried after Ben, no doubt to make preparations.

What could he do?

Fight alongside his friends for Caleb and risk transformation?

Risk the Elemental Alliance and potentially doom the world?

Or stand by, do nothing and be forever branded a coward?

What should he do?

What could he do?

...

What would Caleb do?

*****

"You what!?" Bren shouted.

Mary stuffed one of the revolvers Caleb had turned previously into a weapon into a bag. "We confronted Gregory. Caleb was right. He's Gnoll and he's called us out. Newport baseball field. Eight o'clock tomorrow."

The tiger yanked the bag away from her. "And you plan on going by yourself?"

"Of course not," she replied, taking the bag from him. "That's why I'm telling you. Bring as many bodies as you can."

"You know I can't activate more than one clone at the one time," Bren growled back. "I can barely control three and protocol dictates I don't try."

"Then come and bring spares. The Alpha Pack will be coming too."

Bren threw his paws into the air with an exasperated sigh. "Wolf Christ, Mary, everyone in the Alpha Pack is a super and there are at least twelve of them. At last count, there are over fifty hyenas. Who knows how big they have gotten since then! Do you have _any_idea how much damage this could cause? What if the hyenas break out into the streets and start transforming people!? What then?"

She began stuffing more weapons into the bag, pausing momentarily at the 'evolved' weapon; that gauntlet that could summon bones out of nothing. It wouldn't fit on her anyway so she left it. "I was hoping you could call a quarantine or something."

"For..." Bren rumbled, running a paw over his face. "Do you have _any_idea what this means? If we do that, it'll be a media frenzy. People will be clamouring to get the best seats and... Fuck, Mary, it'll be a circus!"

"Do you want to stop this or not?" she demanded.

He froze.

She could see exactly what he was thinking. It wasn't just about stopping Gnoll or the risk it posed to the people of West California Island. They could wipe the memories of the public but that sort of technology was not made public to the Elemental Alliance or any other superhero team. They were already on thin ice with them after keeping the Gene Stealers from them; the Alliance accusing the Outsiders of being prideful and arrogant. If the memory wiping technique was revealed, they could permanently sever all links between them.

"We have no choice, Bren," she said softly. "If we don't do this, then more people will get hurt or transformed. Gnoll has stepped up his activities. He went public last Friday and it's only going to get bigger. And you heard what he said. They're getting stronger, developing more powerful serums and soon, their 'Generations' are going to come on par with supers. We can't let that happen, Bren. We just can't."

The tiger winced and turned around. He seized a long, green pole made to look like a straightened snake. It had been a cobra in the zoo when it was attacked by one of Spider Queen's Thralls months ago. Caleb had turned it into a staff with the power to paralyse anyone who was struck by its venomous blast.

"Take this at least," he said, handing it to her. "I don't want anyone to die but I know it's unavoidable. If what Gnoll says is true, then by now, those people have joined Gnoll willingly. They need to be stopped."

She took the staff, smiling lightly. "Does that mean...?"

"Of course I'll help," answered Bren kindly. "I'm probably going to die a lot but hey, I'm used to it."

"Thanks Bren."

Wham!

"Wait!"

They both turned towards Caleb's cell. The big hyena was panting. It looked like he had just recently orgasmed. At least his cock was fully back in its sheath now.

"Let me help," Caleb said. "I should still have my powers, right? I can still let you guys a paw."

Mary shook her head sadly. She approached his cell, pressing a hand against the force field. "I know you want to help, Cale, but you can't. You're not fully in control yet. You know it. I know it. We need you to get better."

Caleb whimpered, his golden eyes looking pitifully at her. "Fuck... I hate this..."

"Really?" she joked lightly. "You've broken your jack off record, haven't you? I thought you'd be proud."

He laughed softly. Not a hyena laugh. His normal, bright laugh that just lit up the room. "Yeah... It's three times in an hour. Used to be four in the first few days. Before that, right after I changed, it was just constantly coming out. Permanent orgasm. It felt fucking great..." He growled, a feral lusty noise and for a second, Mary pulled away, seeing the ferocious beast that Caleb was just barely keeping in check.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I'm pulling it in but... Shit... It's hard."

She inclined her head, smiling brightly if only to try to hide her tears. Caleb was fighting so hard, always the fighter. His fight inspired her and she didn't want to seem weak or emotional in front of him. "Hormonal teenager given a giant cock and muscles gods would be envious of? Yeah, I'm pretty sure anyone would be fighting hard to keep themselves sane."

"I'm still trying, though," he rumbled. Then he grunted. His sheath was starting to stir again. "Shit... Sorry, it's coming again... Mary... Kick some ass for me. And save me some. When I get out of here, I want to rip out that fucktard's heart, turn it into a bloody bomb and stuff it back into his chest. See if he can laugh about that!"

That made her laugh. "A non-sexually charged threat. You _are_improving." She pulled away from the shield. "And hey, I someone here that's going to keep you company."

As she turned, Lance stepped into the chamber beside Lars. Seeing the Doberman confirmed her fears. She couldn't blame Lars. Despite his parents being cold and uncaring towards him, they were his parents. He couldn't risk their lives. Still, it disappointed her that he wasn't going to be joining them either.

It looked like it would just be them and the Alpha Pack. Hopefully, that would be enough.

"Thanks for coming you two," she said, smiling at them both. She hefted the bag over her shoulder and nodded. "I'm off. Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Lance said.

Lars looked like he wanted to say something but... balked and just gave her a smile and a nod.

*****

Caleb panted. Sweat rolled off his brow and he wrinkled his nose a little. The cell stank of his sweat, his cum and his corrupted scent. It didn't smell like wolf anymore. It was hyena and he was revolted by it. Not because it was a hyena's scent but because it was his scent. It felt wrong. Worse, his body felt wrong. It felt good but it felt wrong.

He stared at his massive sixteen in cock that matched his enormous body. A large drop of his cum slipped off the black, pointed dip and joined the pool beneath him. He glanced at the timer on the wall. It read 1 hour 15 minutes. He had asked Elliot to give him a clock so he could time how long before each orgasm. He was getting better. Somehow, he had managed to keep himself to jacking off once per hour now and he was slowly starting to gain more and more control over himself.

It sickened him that he may have to deal with the fact that he may have to live with an alter ego as a hyena with a transformative laugh and an insane libido. Still, Mary's words at the possibility of transforming back to a wolf gave him some hope. He never realised how much he liked being a wolf before he lost his identity.

He glanced at his reflection in the mirror offered to him. The hyena staring back was not him and it made him sick looking at it. Two days ago, he had broken it, punching is gargantuan fist through the glass. The wounds healed almost instantly. Though it was nice to have regeneration, it... it just wasn't him. He wasn't Caleb Hale anymore.

Gnoll had taken more than just his body from him.

This was identity rape on a whole new level.

He sighed and left his trust once more in Elliot. Hopefully, there would be a cure...

He turned back towards the force field where Lance and Lars were sitting by, watching him quietly. He lumbered over to them and then sat down himself, cross legged.

"So... How's it feel to be a hyena?" asked Lars gently.

"Do you hear me laughing?"

"No."

"Then I make for a pretty shitty hyena. I make a better wolf."

That made the Doberman smile. "Don't worry, man. We'll get you back to normal soon."

Caleb lifted his right arm and flexed it. The veins that bulged across his appendage were both fascinating and a massive turn on. "Is it bad that some part of me doesn't want to? I mean, some part of me just keeps saying 'Fuck that scrawny puppy and go with the super big hyena'. I feel the power, you know? I feel like I can take on the world like this..."

"No denying you're not hot," Lance replied softly. "I just want you to be you, though. If you were this big and still the wolf you... I'd die of over stimulation."

He chuckled softly at his brother. "Thanks, Lance." He patted his knees lightly. "Okay, so what do you want to do? I think if we keep my mind of sex, I'll be able to actually hold a decent conversation for more than an hour. Any ideas?"

The three boys exchanged glances.

"Um..." Lars began. "Oh! Hey, did anyone see that new movie? Um... I forgot..."

"The Hercules remake_?_" Lance asked. He at himself and Caleb. "Yeah, saw it Friday."

"Cool. I wanted to check it out. How is it?"

"Lots of action, lots of muscles. Not really my thing. I guess I'm a softie and I like a bit of romance."

Lars turned to Caleb. "You Cale?"

The hyena shrugged absently. "It was okay. It's nothing like my all-time favourite movie."

Lars grinned and rolled his eyes. "Oh right. Anything from the TT series."

Caleb grinned broadly and spread his arms, his knuckles brushing against the edges of the cells. "What? I'm a sucker for those grand fantasy movies. Hell, did you see the effects during the first movie? The battle at Chillfarn, the fall of the Iceheart, the battle on top of the Sun Spire! It was fucking awesome!"

"You just like it because Hugh Clooney is hot as the badass starship engineer."

Caleb pointed accusingly at Lars, wagging a finger. "Actually, I _much_prefer Steven Salvador as the 'antagonist'. He's got the sinister smirk down pat and he looks awesome as the regal, villain with everything planned out."

Lance lifted his paws. "I'm sorry... What are we talking about?"

"TT!" Caleb exclaimed. "As in Tower Thirteen? You know, those movies made years back? Big fantasy world. Shattered planet? Crystal core?"

His brother blinked at him in surprise. "You mean those movies that you watched in a marathon and couldn't sleep for two days because you drank so much caffeine through it all and crashed for an entire weekend?"

"What? They're good! Plus, they have gay relationships and they aren't afraid to show some on screen action. Okay, no penetration and what not but..." He paused a moment and frowned. "Wow... I watched those two years ago and loved them... Huh... I was gay a lot sooner than I thought..."

"Yeah you were," snickered Lars. He waved absently through the air. "Okay, okay. No more movies. We're making Lance feel left out." He smiled and said, "Oh hey, what do you say when you change back we get you your favourite food?"

"AMC?" laughed Lance.

Lars smile wavered and he exchanged a nervous glance at Caleb.

"Actually," the hyena began. "AMC is awesome and all but my favourite food is actually pork chops."

"Your mother's pork chops," Lars corrected with a sly grin. "And you always have it with her homemade cranberry sauce." He stuck out his tongue at that. "I can't imagine how you could _possibly_have fruit with pork. It just doesn't make sense."

"You loved it, admit it," Caleb accused.

"Your mom does make awesome pork chops," Lars admitted with a snicker. "And they more than make up for the _horrible_idea which is adding fruit into the mixture."

Caleb grinned broadly but that wavered as well when he saw Lance looked puzzled at both him and Lars. "Okay, well we've covered food and movies... um..." He snapped his fingers. "Hey! How about videogames, huh? Everyone likes that, right?"

"Not really..." Lance murmured softly. "I mean I could go for some UFC here and there but anything beyond that..."

"You have got to try the new Final Fantasy instalments," Lars said. "Caleb got me into them. I know, I know, it's geeky and it's JRPG but they've really picked up the series after the hiatus! They've gone back to their roots, added deep storytelling, more player choices, multiple endings that don't suck, awesome cinematic as always and intuitive mini games that break through the grinding part of the story. Oh and side quests galore! Hell, each side quest is like playing a whole new instalment in itself!"

"You like that stuff?" Lance asked.

"Videogames have really picked up since EA admitted it was evil and funding supervillainy throughout the world," Lars replied with a shrug. "Now developers don't have to worry about being undercut or bought out by a monstrous corporation that swallows anything whole, milks it for all its work and then throws it out into the wind after beating it with a stick."

"A jock like you knows this much about games?"

Caleb flicked his ears at his brother. "I'm a jock. I like games."

Lance started and his jaw hung open a little.

Caleb glanced back at Lars. "Hey bud... can you give us a second?"

Sensing that something was wrong, Lars nodded and excused himself, claiming he wanted to check up on Elliot. When they were alone, Caleb regarded his brother worriedly.

"So..." he began softly. "You don't really know me, huh?"

Lance shrugged absently. "Well... How much do you know about me? Favourite movie?"

"Capital Punishment," Caleb replied shortly. "That movie about the gay couple that tries to make it in a world against gays. One of the guys dresses up as a woman to hide their love but when they're discovered, they are torn apart. The guy in drag was executed and the other guy had to testify against him to survive as per the first's wishes. You cried because the second guy was in the military and was on the _firing squad_that shot his love."

"Favourite food?"

"That's Peaking Duck. You can't get enough of the sauce."

"Favourite... um... Football player?"

"Linkin Samuelson. Number 66 of the New Canada Yetis. You fell in love with him when he visited the island a couple of years back and got your shirt signed. It was actually a shirt for the Yankees but you still loved it and him. It's what got you into football."

"Erm..." Lance's eyes darted left to right. "Favourite... gun...?"

"The MAW-14, the Multi-Arsenal-Weapon 14. Gun used by the US Special Forces equipped with fourteen different types of weapons and gadgets. You tried building your own until dad caught you and told you that buying weapons grade plutonium from eBay is illegal and to stop reading those blogs that claim the MAW-14 has it."

Caleb sat back, shaking his head in surprise. "I know all this stuff about you, Lance. I grew up with you. But you don't know anything about me."

"Well how was I supposed to?" Lance countered. "You kept this whole part of your life a secret from everyone, from all of us!"

"That was only for the past six months! Before then, I was just a normal kid. You had our whole lives to get to know each other and though you gave me a hard time, I still know all your ins and outs. But you don't even know anything about me."

His brother let out a long sigh and ran a paw down his face. "Cale... I'll admit, I haven't always been in to you. I mean, it's only recently and by then, the only things I know about you is what makes you scream. I mean, you _hate_snow -"

"I know I'm a wolf but if it's snowing, it's fucking too cold," Caleb growled.

"Right. And you're afraid of nuns."

"They're creepy!" Caleb shouted, throwing his paws into the air. "They dress up in their dresses and smile sagely at you like they're trying to hypnotise you with their eyes! They speak softly and at a moment's notice, they'll bring out a ruler and whack you!"

"That's only from movies and that particular movie called the 'Nunnery'," Lance said.

It was a movie about a cult of evil nuns that were actually working for the devil. They took in little girls and taught them in the way of the devil. When the girls grew up, they joined the sagely-smiling masses with the creepy, hypnotic eyes.

"I still say they're all evil," Caleb growled.

"Right. Oh and I know you absolutely hate sour drops."

"They look like M&Ms and trick you!" Caleb snarled and turned away from Lance. "Okay, so you know what makes me squirm... I guess... I guess that counts for something."

For a long moment, Lance was silent.

Then, the sound of a machine powering down made Caleb's ears perk and his heart skip a beat. Turning back to Lance, he found the containment field down. His brother smiled at him, looking a little scared but at the same time never so sure of anything in his life. Lance crossed the threshold into the containment area. Caleb crab crawled backwards in horror.

"Lance! What the fuck!?"

"Caleb," his brother said, "I want to get to know all about you. Everything about you. Ins, outs, this form and the old. I don't care what happens. I... I love you, Cale." He reached down and gripped Caleb's muzzle tightly in both paws. "I felt so helpless when you turned... I never want to feel that helpless again. And I know that if I knew more about you, I'd be able to protect you better. Please Cale? Let me in?"

Caleb whimpered softly, his ears folding back as their muzzles hovered over one another.

Now, more than ever, he knew he loved his brother.

Their muzzles met -

"Lance! Caleb!"

*****

Lars felt both terrible and triumphant at the same time. The moment the door to the armoury shut behind him, he slapped his forehead and growled at himself for the dirty scumbag that he was. Driving the conversation to reveal just how little Lance knew about Caleb while highlighting his own knowledge was just... just terrible. It was the most un-heroic thing he had done ever.

But in the six or so months he had known Caleb, he had learned and memorised so much about the wolf - he refused to think of Caleb as a hyena - than Lance had in a lifetime. He just wished Caleb could see that...

"And what?" he snarled at himself. "Suddenly dump Lance and go after a chicken like you?" He banged his head absently against the metal wall. "A coward that didn't even have the guts to get up and fight beside his friends... You're a colossal idiot..."

Lars shuffled miserably away from the armoury and sulked towards Elliot's room. He just hoped that the orca had come up with something to cure Caleb. Maybe bringing the news of a cure would redeem him in the eyes of his best friend somewhat.

Elliot was tapping away at his keyboard while there was some scientific equipment bubbling away on the desk next to him. It looked somewhat dangerous to have several potentially corrosive liquids next to such expensive machinery but he wasn't about to argue with the genius' method.

"If you're coming here to ask how I'm doing," the orca said without looking over, "I'm fine. The cure... not so much."

"What's holding you up?" Lars asked.

The orca seemed surprised to hear from him and glanced over his shoulder for the briefest of moments before turning back to his work. "If what Gnoll-slash-Gregory says is true, then eventually Caleb will cure himself but he'll be permanently marred by the hyena strain, have the ability to transform people with his laugh and have an alternate form that is much more suited for battle. Not to mention he'll have baseline superpowers. As a scientist, I cannot see the merit in developing a cure if it is going _against_progress."

WHAM!

Lars slammed Elliot against his console, baring his fangs. "Listen here you little shit," he sneered. "I don't fucking care what your 'scientific morality' says. That is not Caleb Hale! He doesn't want to be stuck like that! And you are certainly not_going to stop developing a cure because you don't think it's _progressive! Got that!?"

Elliot snapped at him and tried to push him away but Lars was still a super and he still could press down at the orca without trying. "I didn't say I was stopping! Just that it didn't make sense! Now let go of me, Hotrod!"

"It's Lars. Lars McCloud." He slammed Elliot against the console one more time before releasing him. "Or Firebrand."

"I'll call you Hotrod," snarled Elliot, turning back to his console. "Anyway, if you must know, I'm stuck. As I told Puppy yesterday, the mechanics of the serum fully rewrote Caleb's DNA. Even having the original serum doesn't help. It's not something that's fully scientific. It's supernatural."

Lars' brow furrowed. "What?"

"It's a superpower," answered the orca. "Tempered with science. Near as I can tell, the power allows for the reorganisation of genetic data. Whether it's at will, random or in reaction to certain stimulus, I can't tell. All I know is that someone has tampered with it so that it changes the victim in a certain way. In Caleb's case, it turns him into a hyena that builds on his natural strengths. He was a big, brawny wolf so it made him a big, brawny hyena. I'm guessing that Gregory was originally an athletic person so it made him an athletic hyena."

The orca waved a hand over the screens. "The problem is, superpowers can't be charted. They sort of... defy logic. They're not bound in the DNA of a person or anything like that. They constantly evolve as well. I can't replicate it and no matter how much I look at Caleb's DNA, I can't find _any way_to reverse it."

Lars found himself losing hope. This was a superpower... There was no way to stop it. Caleb would be stuck like this forever. The only known way to stop a superpower was... was...

"The nullification fields..." he whispered, eyes widening.

"What?" Elliot asked, frowning at him.

"Superpowers can he nullified with the nullification fields! Like the ones that were built in Bal-Mordain! If Caleb's transformation was fuelled by a superpower then maybe -"

"A nullification field can help reverse it!" Elliot exclaimed, his eyes widening. "Of course!" He slapped his forehead and turned back to his console. "I should've seen it sooner! It's so obvious!" He flashed Lars a grin. "You ain't so dumb as Muscles, Hotrod."

"Thanks... I think."

Lars grinned and watched Elliot work. The orca asked him to grab a few things and apply them to the formula that he was working on. He gladly assisted.

"The nullification field will cancel out the original transformative effects," Elliot said. "It won't let us reverse it. But if we can use it to isolate and identify the changes in Caleb's DNA by applying a sample of the original serum to existing samples of Caleb's DNA, we can reverse engineer the effects and..."

Elliot suddenly pushed back on his seat, hands to his lips in anticipation. He pressed a button on his console.

On the screen, the DNA sequence marked as 'Caleb Hale' was inundated with some strange, brownish-red spider-like shapes. Viruses from all appearances. The looked like they were carrying large egg sacks on their back. Lars held his breath as one of the spiders drew close to the DNA strands.

"Here it comes," Elliot said, leaning forward.

One of the spiders clutched onto a DNA strand...

Then it began to glow. Others clutched onto the strand and the moment they made contact, they all began to shimmer and shine. Lars' eyes widened when he saw tiny feathers erupting from their ethereal blue frames. His eyes switched back to the live sample where they had injected the serum. The little petri dish was emitting the same, brilliant blue-white glow when Caleb's powers came into effect.

"Holy shit! Is that meant to happen!?"

"No!" Elliot exclaimed, turning towards the sample. "It's not..."

The light grew bright, shooting up from the sample before fading slowly, a shower of white feathers dancing in the air where it had touched.

Lars had to rub his eyes to rid himself of the stars flashing before his eyes.

"Oh my god..."

He turned to the screen. The 'C. Hale' strain had completely changed. It didn't even look like a DNA sample anymore. It looked like... like...

"Are those... dogs?"

"Hyenas," Elliot replied. "I think."

"Did we just make it worse?"

"No... Hang on..."

Elliot stumbled out of his seat, waddling over to the samples he had collected. He took a pipette and sampled some of the culture they had just created and carried it over to a large pile of petri dishes marked as 'Infected Sample'. He dropped just a single drop into one sample.

The moment it collided with the sample, it began to glow just like when Caleb created a weapon.

Elliot took a step back, eyes wide. The moment the sample stopped shining, he took it over to his microscope and brought the image on screen.

"My god..."

"What? What?" Lars demanded.

Elliot staggered towards the screen. "We made a cure... Better, it's a vaccine! Look here!" He began tapping on the console. The new sample was labelled 'New C. Hale Strain' while an original strain of Caleb's DNA was shown. "Somehow, the vaccine 'scrubbed' Caleb's DNA! It repaired it completely! But there's one major difference!"

He zoomed in on one particular band in the strand. "This thing! It's different!"

"What does it do?"

Elliot grinned and grabbed the poison dart that had been used to infect Caleb in a pair of tweezers just like he had done with the first sample. "There's only one drop left in this thing. I've sent analysis of it to institutions all over the world and they're analysing it but this is our only remaining copy. If I'm right, the moment I drop this into Caleb's fixed DNA, nothing will happen."

Lars held out a paw. "Whoa, are you sure? I mean what if you're wrong? Then we won't have anything to go on."

The orca shrugged. "For science."

Before he could stop the orca, Elliot tipped the tip of the dart into the fixed culture. They both looked towards the screen. The residue rapidly spread and across the culture as a reddish-brown mist. In the microscopic view, more of those little spiders scattered all over Caleb's DNA. Lars held his breath.

One spider clamped onto the highlighted strand.

Then it immediately went rigid and detached itself. The little spider curled up onto its back like it had died before abruptly shattering into even smaller pieces and vanishing into the goo. Lars glanced at the culture and watched in awe as the dark mist slowly began to fade.

"Somehow, that little mutation makes Caleb completely immune to infection," Elliot exclaimed, grinning broadly.

"Hold on!" Lars exclaimed, waving his paws. "How is this even possible? You said it should just isolate the effects. How did we go from figuring out what makes the transformation to finding a cure in one go? And what was with that glow? It looked like Caleb's powers activating!"

"It was Caleb's powers activating." Elliot turned towards the screens. "Caleb's powers somehow turned the deactivated virus without all the superpowers into a weapon against the very thing that would have turned it! I can only speculate that with all those superpowers flooding the serum, Caleb's powers were overwhelmed or he didn't think to activate them. It probably wouldn't have been safe or he wouldn't ended up turning him into an inanimate object."

"But Caleb wasn't here to activate his abilities."

Elliot shook his head. "He doesn't need to. How do you think the first supers discovered they had abilities? It wasn't through scientific method. It was through instinct. Like what Gnoll said, most powers are stored in the subconscious and supers are just able to reach into their subconscious and control their bodies better than normal people. Supernatural powers are bound there as well. You know there have been cases of people using their powers inadvertently. Hell, when Caleb first realised he had powers, he refused to touch anything because it could be turned into a bloody nuke!"

That was true. Caleb got _really_freaked out that one day. Lars only recently learned it was the day he discovered he was an Outsider. He didn't have control back then. It was all built on instinct.

"You think we could apply this to all the other Gene Stealers?" asked Lars.

"I don't know," Elliot responded. "Caleb's powers are random. We're just lucky this time. But there is one more test I want to run before we decide it's conclusive." He went over to his console and tapped a few more commands.

A loud hissing noise erupted from just beside Lars' left foot and he leapt back. A little refrigerator that emitted an ominous violet glow emerged from the ground, hissing with mist. There were DNA samples in there.

"Bal-Mordain takes mandatory DNA samples of all its inmates," Elliot said, plucking on such sample marked 'Lewis Sanchez'. "If my theory is correct, the antibodies generated when we tried to infect Caleb's pure DNA with a small dose of the serum will actually clear the victim's DNA and render it immune to this particular strain."

Elliot went to preparing the cultures. Lars didn't dare mention just how unsafe and unsanitary the working conditions were considering there were bags of Cheetos and half-eaten pizzas everywhere. Not to mention how unmethodical Elliot was approaching his research. Still, it gave him hope and that was very few these days.

Lars just watched in anticipation as Elliot dropped the DNA sample from Lewis Sanchez, brought it up on screen and then applied a small dose of Caleb's antibodies. Just like before, a bright glow emerged from the sample as tiny, blue-white hyenas attacked the infected DNA. The screen went white for a moment and when it faded, the DNA looked... different.

"Well..." Lars began. "It looks different. How're you going to test if it can't change back? You used the last of the serum."

Elliot tapped the side of his head. "I'm just starting to respect you, Hotrod. Don't go dumb like Muscles on me now." He turned and brought a pair of strange headphones over his ears. "They hyenas turn people using their laughter which emits some sort of supernatural signal that orders the DNA to rearrange itself." He picked up a speaker and placed it directly in front of the newly cleared culture. "If I'm right, this should have no effect on the 'clean' DNA."

"Wait," Lars said. "Do you even have a sample of this Sanchez's original DNA to compare this new sample to?" He asked, hiking a thumb at the screen. "I mean, sure it looks different but how are we even sure that it's right? For all you know, he could have turned into some horrible, fleshy blob."

Elliot stared pointedly at him. "Look, we've cured Caleb. As far as I'm concerned, this is a bonus."

He switched on the recording. The hyena's riotous laughter blared out from the speakers and right into the sample. Elliot shouted, over the laughter, that by now they should have seen a change in the sample.

Nothing happened.

They left it on for fifteen entire minutes.

Still nothing.

He then switched it off and grinned broadly at Lars. "I think we have a winner."

Lars was just glad they had the cure for Caleb. They spent the next five minutes arranging for a sample of the cure big enough to be given to Caleb. From all appearances, once the antibodies entered the body, it was self-replicating. While Lars methodically followed Elliot's instructions on preparing more, the Orca tested cure on various other blood types, species and known hyenas under Gnoll. All of them worked. All were reverted to what they hoped was their original forms.

When he was satisfied, Elliot handed Lars three syringes.

"One is for Caleb," he said firmly. "The other is for Lance. Just in case."

"And the last?" Lars asked.

Elliot's eyes darkened and he scowled. "For Gnoll."

He didn't dare ponder the implications of that thought and just thanked the orca. He turned and bolted back to the armoury.

"Lance! Caleb!" he cried.

He froze when he saw the containment field down. For the third time, he held his breath. Lance was in Caleb's huge arms, the two of them staring at him in surprise, Caleb's huge cock squirting loudly and invitingly. Lars fought back the thoughts of 'That should be me!' and just held up one of the syringes.

"We have it! We have the cure!"

Caleb's eyes brightened and Lars could see some of that dazzling wolf behind the broad, hyena features. His breath was stolen again but this time not by suspense but just by the wolf in a hyena's body. Caleb hugged his brother tightly before rising and lumbering over.

"That's great, Lars!" Caleb exclaimed, holding out his big, meaty arm. "Okay, give me the shot!"

Lars grinned, held up a syringe. The dirty part of his mind wished he was shooting some other type of fluid into Caleb.

Snap!

The metal probe snapped upon contact with Caleb's arm.

"Uh..."

"Baseline superpowers," Lance grumbled, running a paw down his face. "Of course... Hardened flesh... Shit..."

If Lars hadn't been thinking it a moment ago, he would never have suggested it but... "Well... There is one other way we can get it into you."

"Orally?" Caleb asked hopefully. He looked cute with that awkward smile where he folded one ear down and grinned on one side.

"You're stomach fluids will just eat away at it..." Lars said gently.

"In my eye?"

"You really want that?"

Caleb's ears folded back and he tucked his tail between his legs.

For once, Lars was glad for his stubby tail so that it wasn't obvious that it was wagging.

"Cale... Bend over."

*****

The Newport baseball field remained just as unfinished as it had been the first time Mary seen it. Scaffolding continued to loom over the bleachers and the field itself was still a mess of dust, tire tracks and hard packed mud. All evidence of the hyenas and their initial attack had been wiped away. All but the memories of those that had fought.

Mary stepped onto what would have been home plate on the large diamond-shaped field. Beside him loomed the intimidating Blood Wolf, eyes flashing red. Across from them, Gregory stood dressed in a surprisingly concealing outfit consisting of a black coat trimmed with a tan brown that almost appeared gold. The collars were up, rising up the sides of his face. The top buttons of the coat were undone to reveal his chiselled chest. The coat actually looked a little big on him.

Behind the Gene Stealer loomed the sixteen foot, mighty hyena, Lewis Sanchez AKA Madman.

Behind him were about twenty other hyenas, all about twelve to fourteen feet high.

Their varying heights but still towering over the average fur compared to the seemingly miniscule Gnoll only made the Gene Stealer all the more intimidating.

"Just you two?" Gregory asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Where's the famous Alpha Pack, hmmm?"

Right on cue, a loud creak emitted from the construction site. The hyena's turned. A ghostly image flashed before their eyes, a streak of white that quickly shrunk down into the image of a pure white, female werewolf dressed in a silky, figure-hugging leather suit. She cracked her knuckles ominously.

Boom!

Opposite to the white wolf, a gargantuan fourteen foot werewolf with glistening greenish-black fur landed on the field. The huge creature was wider and more muscular than even Sanchez, giving the hyena pause. Its blazing red eyes were a sight to behold.

Mary took a deep breath as the remaining nine members of the Alpha Pack made their own dramatic appearances. Twelve fully-fledged supers and one black belt that can read minds if she really focused against a swarm of sex-driven, baseline super hyenas.

In terms of odds, she thought they were about even... if it weren't for Gnoll's unsettling smile.

Something was up and no matter how much she tried to pierce his defences, they were just so damn strong. It wasn't like sorting through David Hale's assortment or random thoughts and eccentricity or Caleb's ability to throw her into a never-ending loop of nonsense until she gave up. It was like she was literally up against a brick wall.

A reinforced brick wall.

Armed with turrets.

And explosives.

Strapped to rats.

Explosive rats.

Mary shook her head, trying to steel herself and focus solely on Gnoll.

"How do you want to play this?" Ben asked softly. "I can take down five, maybe six of these guys. The rest of my family can take care of the others. But the big guy is going to take some effort."

"I've deployed the anti-signal devices around the place and Bren is guarding them," Mary responded. "They won't be able to transform anyone else but we can't risk them hurting anyone." She reached into the duffel back and pulled out the handgun and taser Caleb had turned into supernatural weapons their first time here. "Keep them off my back. I'll deal with Gnoll. He's the most dangerous."

Ben nodded and cracked his massive knuckles. "Leave it to us." He rolled his shoulders and crouched, growling loudly.

"Oh?" Gnoll laughed, holding his paws up in a helpless gesture. "We're just going to go at it? No bantering? No exchanging of insults? You're not even going to wait for me to start a monologue?"

"You turned our friend into one of you sick bastards," Mary answered shortly. She flicked the taser, the long blue whip of pure electricity lancing out behind her. "Now is not the time to talk. Now is the time to fight."

"Oh really?" Gnoll said, smirking broadly. "Not even if... say, I had a hostage?"

She froze.

"That's not fair!" Ben shouted.

"I'm a villain. I don't play fair. You should know that more than anyone." He snapped his fingers and the line of hyenas parted.

Mary froze.

"Alex..."

The young gymnast was pushed boldly out in front of the group of cackling hyenas. Gregory places a paw on the young man's shoulders while Alex glanced from left to right in utter horror.

"Mary? What's going on?"

She couldn't reply. This was bad. "You can't turn him," she said. "We've -"

"Deployed those tidy little devices that nullify our transformative powers, I know," Gregory answered, rolling his eyes. "Feral Steel was quite vocal about setting them up everywhere. But why would I need to turn him when I could just as easily _kill_him?"

Mary and the rest of the Alpha Pack took one step forward as Gregory wrapped a mighty paw around Alex's neck. Alex's eyes bulged and he just froze, shaking in fear.

"So here is how it's going to go down," Gregory laughed softly. "You tell us the secret of those devices, you give us a free pass to the mainland and you get this little juicy piece of ass." The hyena leaned down and ran his tongue slowly against Alex's cheek, making the young man wince and try to shy away.

Mary tightened her fists. "Ben, can you control Gnoll's body?"

"I can try," answered the werewolf. "What's the plan?"

"Get him away from Alex and keep his muzzle shut. I'll get Alex. The rest of your family provide cover."

"Got it."

Gnoll flicked an ear at them. She sincerely hoped he didn't hear them.

"Deal," Mary announced. "Just let Alex go first."

Gnoll threw his head back and laughed. He immediately released Alex who staggered forward. "Really? Good god! It's that easy? You guys are such big idiots!"

"What...?"

The hyena looked madly straight at her, eyes wide. "You did your prep. I've done mine. Come on, Mary. It's been like six hours since we last spoke. What do you think I was doing then? I just kidnapped Alex! Do you think me and my boys were just sitting around in our egg chairs stroking little, fluffy cats!?"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Mary slowly turned around, her eyes wide in horror. Several, _massive_hyenas landed behind her. Each of them looking hungry for sexual release. Their eyes were wide, tongues lolling and dripping. Their cocks were fully erect unlike those hyenas at the centre of the field. These guys were freshly turned.

Click-click.

At that noise, she turned straight back towards Gnoll... only to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

Ben flinched and made to reach for Gregory's wrist but the hyena lifted another gun towards him.

"Shark Tamer has been quite busy you know," the hyena laughed. "We don't exactly have tonnes of supers lining up to see if they can be turned into Gene Stealers. So you folks are lucky enough to be a field test." He grinned broadly and wiggled the gun levelled at Mary. "So we know what'll happen if you're an Outsider. You'll be just like Caleb." Then he wiggled the gun levelled at Ben. "I wonder how you'll turn out seeing as you're a super and werewolf.

"Let's find out, shall we?" Then his eyes darted straight towards Mary. "Let's start with you."

Gnoll squeezed the trigger -

BAM!

THWAP!

A big, thick, black, furry arm was suddenly trust in front of her face. Mary was pretty sure her heart had stopped. But the strong paws that seized her shoulders kick started it once more. She heard Gnoll's laughter. Did Ben save her? Did he take the first shot?

No... Ben's fur was blood-red. Did one of his parent's?

"You okay?"

Her heart skipped a beat.

"Cale...?"

Her eyes met Caleb's bright blue. Not gold. Bright blue. And she was staring at his handsome lupine face again. Slowly, he pulled his arm down from in front of her. The dart was still embedded in it.

Gnoll staggered back, laughing hysterically. "I knew it! I knew you couldn't resist!"

No... This was part of his plan!

What was in the serum!?

The hyena shrugged while still laughing. "It took me just three days to come back to my senses and get my libido under control. I'm surprised it took you so long to get here, Caleb! Guess with a bigger body comes more hormones to reign in, eh?" He nodded at the dart in Caleb's arm. "Don't worry. A second dose won't make you a 'double-hyena'. It'll just force you straight back into the raving animal you fought so hard to keep in control of! It'll take you another three days to get control again but I doubt even the Alpha Pack and your girlfriend can keep fighting against you for that long!"

It was part of his plan! He was going to turn Caleb against them! The power of Weapons Master, uncontained, full of primal instinct against the Alpha Pack and Mary... The balance was shifted back in favour of the Gene Stealers.

Caleb grunted and yanked the dart away from his arm. Ben was taking steps away from him and Mary was tempted to do the same.

"Think again, asshole," the wolf growled. He flicked the dart away. A soft, blue glow emerged from the wound and tiny, white feathers began springing from it.

Gnoll's grin wavered. "What...? You should be changing..."

"One thing you should know about me, Gregory," Caleb growled, he swung his right arm and for the first time, Mary noticed that he was wearing that bone armour he had obtained back at Bal-Mordain. "I'm a fighter. No matter what shit you throw my way, I'm going to fight it! Even if you take away my body and my mind, you can bet some part of me will fight you! Even if I'm not throwing the punches, others will fight take up the fight because they're part of me too! And that's something you can never understand!"

...

"Wolf Christ, Cale," Ben muttered. "That's seriously the best you could come up with?"

Caleb rolled his eyes. "Give me a break. It only took fifteen minutes to get here, I just turned back from a fucking hyena after getting the serum given to me as a suppository. I couldn't sit down in the van and I was _not_going to let Firebrand carry me after he was the one that 'cured' me."

"Still. I could come up with a better line than that and I'm a villain. Something like -"

"Burn, bitches!"

All three of them turned towards the skies. Fiery balls shot down towards the hyenas in scores. The freshly transformed hyenas let out panicked yelps and bolted away from Firebrand. The Doberman rained down hell upon them.

"Mary! Caleb!" Lars shouted. "The Alliance are coming! Hoods up!"

"That's our cue," Caleb muttered, reaching for his hood.

Mary seized his arm. "Caleb... what happened...? Are you really?"

He grinned at her, his true, room-brightening grin that just filled her with hope and reminded her that there was still good in the world. "Turns out, my DNA could very well be used to cure Gene Stealer mutation. Provided we get a sample. Now come on. Let's shut these fuckers up."

She beamed brightly and pulled up her own hood, masking her features from the world. All around them, signs of the Elemental Alliance's powers flared out. Huge, metal walls sprang up all around the baseball field, barring any and all escape from the fleeing newly made hyenas. Bolts of lightning arced down from the skies and struck the field, throwing hyenas wildly into the air. Alliance members came crashing into the grounds while Alpha Pack members let out battle howls and lunged at their prey.

Gnoll staggered back, eyes wide in horror as his plans collapsed all around him. Caleb rushed straight towards the Gene Stealer, his arm flashing in the dim light. Bone spikes launched out of the ground, straight at the hyena. Gnoll snarled and shouted at the ground, using the shockwave from the blast to propel him back.

Caleb bolted after him, fragments of bone leaping out of the ground and attaching themselves straight to his body as a form of armour. The more well trained hyenas tried to strike at him. Their claws bounced off his armour. One almost clawed at his hood but he abruptly stopped before his entire paw just _exploded_in a shower of blood. That very same blood rushed towards Ben who caught it in his paw. The crimson fluids morphed to form a wicked looking blade.

"A sword?" Mary asked. "Really?"

"I'm a nerd," Ben answered with a shrug. "We love swords."

"I bet you do."

Together, they joined the fray, Mary abandoning the taser and the gun in favour of her fists. Blood Wolf let out his own signature howl, speeding past Mary using his supernatural speed enhanced with his powers as a werewolf. He slammed into a group of hyenas, sending three of them soaring into the air before grinding to a stop. It took another three hyenas to stop him completely. He lashed out at them with his blood sword, drawing thin slices across their limbs. Trails of blood joined his seemingly thin weapon, building its strength and making it grow.

Mary caught up with Caleb who squared off against two hyenas.

"So, did you at least get to keep your baseline superpowers?" she asked.

"Sorry," he answered. "Apparently that comes with the transformation and it's the transformation that was reversed. There's a slight mutation in my DNA though that makes it immune to the Gnoll strain."

One of the hyenas lunged at them. Mary pressed herself against Caleb's back, pushing them both back until she was facing the attacker. She kicked off the ground, her feet slamming hard against the hyena's face and the momentum taking her up and over Caleb's shoulders. The wolf beneath her read her moves perfectly, spinning around before she hit the ground and sweeping his paws up. Huge blocks of bone shot out of the ground and slammed into the stunned hyena's chin, sending the beast to the ground, unconscious.

"So if we injected you with Dragon Knight's Strain you'd still transform into a big, scaly, two-cocked reptile?"

The hyena lunged at her. Caleb swept his paws behind him and a wall of sharp bone instantly rushed out of the ground in front of her, barring the hyena's vision of her. She turned towards him and he was already waiting with his paws cupped for her to use as a spring. She placed one foot on his offered paws and he threw her up and over the wall. The stunned hyena beneath her gawked before she drove her elbow right between his eyes.

That dropped him unconscious.

The bone wall sank back into the ground, revealing a panting Caleb.

"Please don't suggest it," he said. "I like being cute and fluffy."

"You're a three hundred pound, seven foot wolf, Caleb," she answered, with a smile. "You're far from cute and fluffy."

Caleb suddenly slammed his armoured fist into the ground. Slabs of bone erupted from the ground all around him, rushing outwards in a wave. Hyenas all around him were thrown into the air and struck the ground.

"You're not using sharp bones..." she noted. "These aren't killing blows."

"We can cure them, Mary," he answered, we a grin. "We can save them."

BOOM!

"That's assuming we want to be saved."

Both teenagers turned.

Madman loomed over them, grinning wildly and with his eyes flashing with both rage and just a little bit of insanity. The hyena sniffed the air and grinned.

"I've got your scent now, boy."

"What about me?" Mary countered, rushing the hulking hyena. She leapt at him, throwing a spinning kick. Madman moved with supernatural speed, instantly seizing her leg and lifting her up into the air upside down. He brought her to his face, grinning wildly.

"I'm not interested in little girls."

She just smiled back at him. "Yeah, you're not my type either." She seized the edges of her coat and flung it straight at him. The bladed edges of the fabric sliced right across the hyena's muzzle. Madman shouted in pain and threw her aside. The air rushed by her but she quickly righted herself and tucked herself into a roll. The impact with the hard ground still hurt but nothing too damaging.

"You little bitch!" Madman roared, storming towards her. "I'll kill you!"

Mary glanced at Caleb. "Go!" she shouted. "Get Gnoll!"

Caleb threw her a nod and bolted past Madman. The hyena turned to face him when -

BOOM!

A nearby fence exploded as a big, red eighteen wheeler came crashing through. Mary's jaw dropped as the enormous truck _slammed_right into Madman, bowling the hyena over completely. An orange figure leapt out of the driver's compartment at the last minute, rolling across the ground skilfully. She spied a familiar revolver coming out of the figure's pocket.

"Bren!" she exclaimed in relief.

The tiger flashed her a grin and dusted his black suit off. "Sorry I took so long. I had to pick up Caleb because he wouldn't let Lars carry him. That and stuff that thing full of explosives."

"Where'd you get the truck?"

"From a very confused trucker who insisted I meet his daughter one time. He thinks she's an alien." He rubbed his chin absently as he regarded the truck and its cargo. "That was meant to explode..."

The loud groaning of metal met their ears. They both turned as the truck complete with its accompanying trailer was lifted sixteen feet into the air by the enormous Madman, muscles bulging all over the enormous hyena's godly frame.

"You fuckers!" roared the hyena.

Bren winced. "I am so going to die here..."

"We've got the Alpha Pack and the Elemental Alliance here," Mary replied with a faint smile. "How many times do you think you could possibly die?"

"I'm betting at least six."

"Once," she insisted, holding out a hand. "Bet on it?"

Bren shrugged and shook her hand.

They only held the position for two seconds before immediately turning in opposite directions and bolting away. The eighteen wheeler came crashing down upon where they had been standing, bouncing twice off the ground before crashing against the scaffolding. She spied the shaky platforms and the damaged bars.

"This has got to be the most idiotic idea I've ever been involved in and Caleb is the one who had sex with his brother."

She bolted straight towards the upturned truck, leaping onto its sides. There, she leapt for the scaffolding, gripping a platform by the edges.

BOOM!

"I'm coming for ya, little pussy!" roared Madman from below. He lunged at her, his claws just barely scarping the soles of her feet.

"I thought you weren't interested in little girls!" she shouted back. Mary nimbly pulled her body onto the platform. She turned -

BOOM!

Only to have the huge hyena pull himself up right in front of her, causing the entire structure to quake. "A hole is a hole, kiddo," he growled. "And when I'm done with ya, that's all you're going to be. A hole."

"Graphic."

Madman let out a roar and charged at her.

"Hey!"

She glanced up. Bren threw a chain down at her. She immediately seized it and let Bren haul her up about ten feet. Just as Madman reached her, she spun herself purposefully around, legs out and slapping the hyena's muzzle. Bren yanked her onto the next floor, temporarily away from Madman.

"Couldn't you call me by my name?" she asked.

"Caleb's the only one with a nickname," he answered with a sly grin. "Ever thought one?"

She inclined her head curiously to the side. "We've know each other for years, Bren. Doesn't the FBI have a codename for me?"

"Yeah but you wouldn't like it."

"What is it?"

He shrugged again. "California Girl."

Strangely, that made her smile. "I like it. Can I get promoted to 'Miss California'?"

BOOM!

Madman roared, bursting right out of the floor and grappling for them. Both Bren and Mary leapt back and bolted for the ladder leading to the next level.

"Tell you what, we survive this and I'll get you the sash for last year's Miss California. Move!"

Mary reached the ladder first and scrambled up to the top. She pulled herself up and turned to aid Bren when a huge paw seized the tiger's leg.

"Bren!"

The tiger was yanked thrown right off the scaffolding, limbs flailing. Mary never got to see him strike the ground as, at that moment, Madman's grinning features came within an inch of her.

"I'm going to eat you up."

WHAM!

Mary punched his nose.

Her fingers broke and she scrambled back with a pained cry.

Madman laughed in her ear as he pulled himself up to her level. He landed on the shaky scaffolding, massive chest rising and falling in his maniacal glee.

"I'm a fucking super, girly!" he laughed. "Your stupid punches can't hurt me like it can hurt the others! I'm too big! Too strong! Too sexy!" He licked his lips and reached for his plump sheath. "And in a few seconds, you'll find out just how sexy."

"Just a few seconds?" she said, crawling backwards with a confident smile she did not feel was honest. "All that size had to come at the cost of something, huh?"

He laughed. "Don't worry. Short burst but I'll be fucking you all night! I'll be fucking you dead!"

Mary looked around... searching for something... anything that would help her! She regretted discarding that taser and revolver. The entire baseball field had turned into a battlefield. Superheroes were clashing with the hyenas and powers were flying everywhere. Perhaps the most prominent of them was Feral Steel and Caleb's abilities. They summoned metal pillars and bone structures everywhere.

Suddenly, two huge fingers seized her chin, forcing her to look straight into Madman's yellow eyes. She could feel his massive cock, fully erect, riding up her abdomen.

"I'm going to enjoy this."

Clang.

The hyena blinked. Bren, bloodied but somehow grinning, appeared over his shoulder.

"Not as much as I'm going to enjoy this, fucker." The tiger pulled at the chains he had looped around Madman's neck, twisting them into a firm knot. "Mary!" he cried throwing the other end of the chain to her.

She noticed that a length of the chain was tied around one of the metal poles for the scaffolding and realised his intention. "Bren... This is too much..."

"Just trust me!" he shouted. "One! Two!"

Madman swung his paws at them. "I'm gonna kill you both!"

Mary threw herself off the edge of the platform alongside Bren. They both held onto the same end of the chain and as they fell, their combined weight pulled Madman off the platform. She noticed that a large segment of the chain was actually tied to concrete blocks as well just in case their weight wasn't enough to hold the hyena. Madman screamed as he was yanked off the platform and the two counterbalancing weights pulled at the looped chain around his neck.

Mary suddenly came to a jarring halt, their feet inches from the ground.

And she could only hear the desperate choking sounds of a man who was having the life sucked out of him.

She blocked Madman's thoughts from her mind. She did not want to listen to that.

"Didn't I tell you to trust me?" Bren said, winking at her. He pulled out a remote. "Lets go."

She did and landed on the ground. Bren guided her quietly aside before he pressed the big, red button on the remote.

BOOOOOM!

Mary jumped as the truck Bren had pilfered _and stuffed with explosives_erupted into flames. The entire scaffolding, the partially built bleachers and Lewis 'Madman' Sanchez was consumed by a fierce conflagration. The ground quaked, shrapnel and debris flew in all directions. For a moment, all fighting stopped and they stared at the momentous sight of Madman falling.

She made to turn to look at the sight but Bren held her shoulder.

"Don't look back. It's more badass that way."

She had to smile at that. Even in the faint flickering flames, she could still sense Madman's thoughts. The hyena was alive, raging and in pain but alive. Too weak to fight back but alive.

"Hey," she said softly. "You didn't die."

Bren smiled at her. "Yeah. I guess we both lose huh?"

CRASH!

Mary leapt back in horror.

As was with Bren's bad luck, a smouldering slab of debris crashed right into him, smashing his body and splattering her with blood.

...

"Guess we should've looked back, huh?"

*****

"See that?" Caleb snarled, eyeing Gregory. He was surrounded in soft, blue light, feathers springing from all around him. "Your right hand man just went down. Your hyenas are falling. And this..." He held out his right arm as the light spread across his shoulders and all the way down his left. "I'm just getting a new piece of gear."

He nodded at Gregory. "You're beaten, Gnoll. Give up."

The hyena stared at him, lips curled back in a sneer. As the light around Caleb faded, a duplicate piece of bone armour was revealed across the wolf's left arm. A fur cape made out hyena pattern fur hung from his shoulders. It felt constricting around his shoulders but at the same time, it seemed to radiate immense power. A pack of ghostly hyenas sprang from the ground, surrounding both him and Gnoll. For effect, he petted one of the little guys which let out a soft, haunting laugh.

Seeing that... suddenly made Gnoll burst out in laughter.

"What's so funny?" Caleb growled.

The hyena took a moment to compose himself and straightened. "Oh nothing... Just that you are all just such colossal idiots."

Caleb frowned. Was that just a supervilain's final attempts to unnerve his captors? One last attempt to get into Caleb's head? "What?"

"Don't you get it?" Gnoll laughed, throwing his head back. "The Gene Stealers spent centuries playing in the shadows! And suddenly I come out and just mess things up? Why do you think that is?"

He remained silent. That very same question had plagued Elliot so he wasn't about to interrupt this villain's monologue. Why would they come out now? Where were the other Gene Stealers? What happened to Spider Queen, Wendigo and Dragon Knight? What was Shark Tamer planning and where did Chimera fit into all of this?

"It's because I'm disposable," the hyena snarled bitterly. "I'm nothing more than another test for them. A successful one, mind you, but still a test. An incomplete subject. We've successfully manage to break the barrier between the conscious and subconscious mind, giving people baseline superpowers. But there are still more steps to come. Still more before the master plan comes to fruition."

Gregory grinned and lifted his bare paws towards his neck. Caleb's brow furrowed, puzzled as to what the Gene Stealer was doing as the hyena grabbed the sides of his head.

"But tell me, 'Weapons Master'. How did it feel? How did it feel to have what you were lacking? The strength? The power? The sheer masculinity of it all? Did it feel good? Was it intoxicating?"

Caleb's fists tightened. It did feel good. It was utterly amazing and something that both disgusted and excited him at the same time. The sensation of his body changing and shifting, the immense pleasure of release as the hyena came out and the rush of _freedom_as he came for the first time in that form... It was a taste of a corrupt, twisted heaven that continued to nag at him from the corners of his subconscious with its siren song.

Maybe there wasn't a hyena left anymore but the memories were there and those three days that he spent in that body made his skin crawl and his cock stir.

Gnoll just grinned.

"Actually, don't answer that."

His grin grew broader, his eyes mad and wide. "Tell me next time we meet."

KA-RACK!

Caleb's eyes widened in horror, his jaw dropping and his entire body freezing. Gnoll's head twisted around at a full 180 degrees to his chest. The hyena... the hyena had just snapped his own neck!

"Holy mother of fuck!"