Third Sin: Little Red and The Wolf (Pt. 9)- Werewolf Down, Kids Safe, And Now The Heroes Show Up

--- Mercer ---

He briefly glanced at Bell and the girl she was holding close. “You okay kid?”

Bell blinked as if stunned by his sudden appearance, (she’s going to have to get used to that if she’s going to be hanging around me.)

The silver eyed teen shook her head, before shakily answering, “I’m… I’m alright…”

“Good.” He nodded, before glaring down at the lycan beginning to struggle against his grip. “Eh, that’s enough out of you.”

The werewolf bucked even harder and he was forced to leap back to avoid being disemboweled by a set of claws, causing Bell to gasp as he weaved through the ensuing flurry of swipes.

“Look you’re scaring the girl, and if you don’t stop I am going to shoot you.” He warned the Lycan as he tightened his makeshift leash. “And there are like a dozen people in this place willing to testify to that.” (Not that any court is brave enough to try me, but the point stands.)

Instead of taking his very generous warning to heart the werewolf instead tried to bite his head off with a very awkward sort of tackling lunge.

“Ugh, you really do need to learn to fight in beast mode.” He sighed, as he used the lycan’s head to flip over the were-beast’s body before taking his grappling wire and trying to choke the werewolf out. “I mean what you’ve got is good enough to brute force a bunch of gangsters but any mask worth their salt is going to kick your ass… like so.”

He gave the wire a pull before swinging his weight in just the right way to force the lycan to slam its head into the wall before drawing his gun and kneecapping the werewolf. At which point he dropped to the ground before kicking the lycan in the ass just to prove his point.

“If you keep getting up next time I’m going to shoot you in the ass.” He told the werewolf as it began picking itself off the ground. “And you don’t want to know what I’m shooting after that.”

--- Bell ---

Mercer was toying with the beast and she couldn’t figure out why.

It was fairly obvious that he could defeat it whenever he felt like it but for whatever reason, he just wouldn’t put the beast down.

(He knows… the beast… seeks to protect…) Her other-selves whispered from the shadows, still inside her head no matter how many left her.

(He knows the beast seeks to protect?) She frowned, watching Mercer continue to dance around the beast even as it tried to rend him limb from limb. (To protect what?)

Rather than answering her other-selves simply let her question hang in her mind unanswered.

With a sigh and a shake of her head she decided that it didn’t matter at the moment. Mercer knew whatever it was the beast was after and she still had to get the children to safety before they were left on their own. After all, regardless of how helpful they were being she knew her other-selves couldn’t last too long from her without dissipating into the ether, thus leaving the children not only alone but scattered throughout the warehouse full of who knows what other kind of threats.

So with all of that in mind she started towards one of the doors her other-selves had dashed through with a child, hoping to trace its steps towards the nearest exit.

(Don’t!) Her other-selves hissed, making her aware of the fact that the sounds of fighting had stopped.

Turning slowly, she met the golden eyes of the beast staring at her, no longer interested in Mercer despite the wire wrapped around its throat.

“Bell, don’t move.” Mercer ordered.

As slowly as she could she moved the girl behind her, hoping to put herself between the child and the beast.

The beast growled before lunging at her once more.

“Shit!” Mercer cursed as he pulled on his wire, throwing the beast’s jump off and sending it crashing into the ground. “Heel, damn it!”

With a snarl the beast grabbed the wires and used them to send Mercer flying into a wall before slamming him into the ground.

Realizing this was probably the only chance she was going to get, she picked the girl up before running through the doorway hoping to escape while Mercer distracted the beast.

--- Scarlet ---

“Fuck, where is he?” She asked the world around her as she tried to track Mercer down.

She had a vague understanding that he’d be wherever the gunfire was coming from, but at the same time she was finding it hard to focus with just how (hungry) she was. Something made all the worse by the fact that she was forced to hide whenever she spotted someone she didn’t recognize moving through the halls, unwilling and unable to fight in her current state.

Another wave of pain tore through her, sending her to her knees as it felt like her very blood was trying to eat her alive, (which it damn well might be.)

Her chest began to tighten, until eventually she was forced into a coughing fit as the pain began to slowly fade, leaving her panting with the taste of blood in her mouth as she bought herself a little longer.

Spitting out a wad of blood that had made its way up her throat, she used the wall to help her stand back up. “Fuck… Forgot how bad this could get…”

As much as she hated them, at the very least the lab had kept her and their other captives decently fed. Which when combined with the fact that after her escape she’d hunted someone down whenever the hunger began to rear its ugly head, she’d forgotten just how badly it could tear into her.

“Just… Just need to find Mercer and… get out of here.” She told herself as she forcibly ignored the dull ache clouding her head.

A familiar figure rushed in front of her before tilting its head as its hair drifted in shadowy wisps through the air.

“Bell?” She frowned, knowing her sister would only send one of her shadows if something had gone wrong.

The shadow continued to stare at her for a moment before pointing down a nearby hall.

“She’s that way?” She asked, aware that her sister’s shadows had a certain level of autonomy while separated from Bell.

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The shadow flickered for a moment before disappearing altogether.

“Fuck…” She cursed, running a hand down her face.

On the one hand she was in no condition to help with anything at the moment, but on the other if Bell was sending her shadow then there must be some kind of emergency.

“Why am I even thinking about this?” She shook her head before starting down the hall the shadow had pointed down.

It only took her a minute to find her sister running down a hall with a girl in her arms.

“Bell!”

“Scarlet!” Her sister blinked, stumbling to a stop before looking over her shoulder. “Wait, we have to, we have to keep moving.”

Her eyes narrowed as she instinctively stepped the way her sister had come from, wanting to be between her and whatever she was running from. “Why?”

“Th-there’s this, this beast and, and Mercer is fighting it but it, it keeps chasing me for some reason!” Bell tried to explain through her panic.

A roar punctuated all of that as a gray beast she recognized from earlier stumbled around the corner, clearly struggling against something wrapped around its throat.

“Step back!” She told Bell, as she muster up whatever Malice was still flowing through her veins before immediately lurching over as agony tore through her once more. “Fuck, not now…”

“Scarlet!” Bell yelled moving to help her keep standing. “What’s wrong?!”

“I… fuck, I’m… I’m hungry.” She grimaced, knowing her sister would understand exactly what she meant.

“No…” Bell gasped, her head darting towards the beast that was starting to crawl towards them. “We, we need to move!”

“Just, just go!” She shrugged off Bell’s hands as she watched Mercer climb over the beast pulling on the cord wrapped around its throat. “I might not be able to stop it, but… I can slow it down long enough for you to get away.”

“I’m not, I’m not leaving you here!” Bell argued, as Mercer leapt off of the beast to keep from getting slammed into a wall.

“Now's not the time, my healing factor is stronger than yours, if it gets me I can-”

“Damn it DeWolf!” Mercer cursed, cutting her off as he shot the Beast in the knee and slammed its head into the ground before beginning to stomp its skull. “Calm. The. Fuck. Down!”

She blinked, realizing that the beast was just barely struggling against Mercer’s assault, but importantly she was caught up on the revelation that-

“That’s DeWolf?!” Bell practically shrieked.

Mercer huffed for a moment as he made sure the beast wasn’t getting back up, before glancing at her. “Uh, yeah?”

“You mean this asshole is that asshole?!” She frowned.

“Pretty much. It’s some kind of bloodline curse or something.” Mercer explained as he hopped off of the beast. “I Which is why his family name is DeWolf, sort of like how some people were named after their profession back in the day, just he’s named after the werewolf thing instead.”

“And you knew and didn’t say anything?!” She growled.

“Well, you’re both Malcontent and I figured the were-demons wouldn’t care about the were-beast?” Mercer answered as if he was the confused one. And as much as she hated it, she found herself unable to really argue when he put it like that, because by comparison they were a lot scarier than an oversized beast. (When our powers are working for us at least.)

“Besides, he usually doesn’t go berserk like this unless there’s a blood moon.” Mercer sighed, as he walked over to a nearby doorway.

“Th-then why did he?” Bell asked, sounding more concerned than afraid now that DeWolf was unconscious.

“We’ll get to that in a second but first…” Mercer lunged through the doorway before grabbing a man who had been hiding and throwing him to the ground. “You strip.”

“W-what?” The man stuttered as he tried to back away from Mercer.

“I said strip, unless you want me to lock you in a room with a naked werewolf.” Mercer growled, his helmet lighting up with a crimson skull.

The man eeped before quickly taking his shirt off and grabbing his pants.

--- Mercer ---

“You know this all would’ve been a lot more straightforward if you’d told me it was your daughter that had been kidnapped.” He told the freshly changed werewolf as the man fretted over the girl Bell had been carrying around.

“Yeah, and you would’ve told me I’m emotionally compromised just like the police.” DeWolf scoffed. “I’m not abandoning my daughter to someone else to save.”

“The fuck I look like, Vigilance?” He scoffed even harder. “If I knew this was about your kid I wouldn’t ‘ve gotten Nightwatch involved and we’d have just killed all of these guys before using their entrails to write out a message not to touch your family.”

Admittedly he didn’t have the resources for all of that, but they could’ve got the kids out and burned the building down with everyone else inside. (It’s the message that counts.)

DeWolf just stared at him for a moment. “You know, sometimes I forget you’re a mass murdering psychopath.”

“Ah, I’m a high functioning sociopath, fuck you very much.” He corrected, before continuing more softly as he checked on the kid himself. “And everyone forgets because I’ve got a soft spot for the kids of the way a mile wide.”

“Right.” DeWolf sighed, before running a hand through his daughter’s hair. “Any idea how long she’ll be like this?”

“No telling, but we’re running all of the kids through Betty’s clinic regardless of what the police say and her people will fix it no matter what.” He assured DeWolf. “And if not I’ll just force Covenant to clean up their mess before I start cutting off hands again. Speaking of…”

He glanced towards where Bell and Scarlet had gathered the kids and were leading them through the warehouse, though of the two Scarlet seemed to be struggling as she gave a full body cringe. “Oi, Scarlet.”

The silver eyed teen grimaced through whatever she was going through as he made his way over.

“Wh-What’s up?” She asked, in an obvious amount of pain despite trying to cover it up.

(Ugh, this reminds of when Virtue tried to convince everyone he wasn’t hurting from that bullet through the side.) He sighed. “You haven’t eaten anything have you?”

Scarlet swallowed. “N-no, I made sure not to eat anyone.”

He couldn’t help but sigh again as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “There are about half a dozen dead corpses in the warehouse, find one and eat it.”

“W-what?” Scarlet blinked.

“You’re a Malcontent. You need to eat people, forcing yourself to starve will just turn your powers on you. And I’ve seen what happens to a Malcontent who starves themselves.” He explained before shaking his head. “We both know it’s not pretty.”

“But, didn’t you promise that Nightwatch person you wouldn’t kill anyone?” Scarlet frowned.

(So that’s what this is about…) He realized before taking off his helmet.

“I did promise Nightwatch I wouldn’t kill anyone.” He admitted, before giving her a look. “But I also promised myself I wouldn’t let a kid kill themselves on my behalf, and a promise to myself is more important than a promise to her. So regardless of what mess I have to clean up, if you need to eat in a fight, then eat the guys trying to kill you, because the last thing I want is you suffering for me, understand?”

Scarlet stared at him for a moment before eventually nodding. “I understand.”

“Good.” He nodded back before giving her a pat on the back. “Now like I said, find a corpse and eat it. Preferably before the cops get here and I can still pin it on all of the monsters these dumbasses were summoning.”

“R-right.” Scarlet nodded once more before stumbling through a nearby door.

As he moved to slip his helmet back on, he idly noticed Bell staring at him, having likely caught at least part of his conversation with her sister. “The same goes for you, got it?”

Bell blinked before nodding herself and getting back to corralling the horde of children outside.

(Alright, let’s go ahead and call this in.) He figured as he put his helmet back on, before turning on his calm and telling Kennedy to send the cops over to collect everyone, because as much as he wanted to he was going to have trouble escorting half a dozen kids to Betty’s clinic on foot.

“Alright, I’ve set it as a priority call so officers should be arriving in the next fifteen minutes or so.” Kinsley told him, as he stepped outside into the night time air.

“And you warned them that they’re meeting with me right?” He asked, knowing that was something he needed to double check if he wanted to avoid being shot at by the cops. (Not that I’m afraid to shoot back.)

There was the faint sound of something landing on top of a car behind him.

“That’s not going to be a problem.” Kinsley assured him, a smile in her voice.

Inhaling deeply he glanced over his shoulder at the sound and saw

[X]-A furry in black watching him curiously.

“Kin-Ken…”

“Yes?”

“You’s a bitch.”

“...”

“I respect that.” He admitted.