Victoria woke with a start as the truck bounced over a particularly poorly maintained dirt Road, slamming the top of her head on the ceiling. why exactly the global secret organization that existed for the sole purpose of defending humanity had a rugged and overgrown road as a path to any of its facilities let alone the primary branch of an entire continent was beyond her. she rubbed the top of her head, she also couldn't understand why she was being transported in the back of a regular delivery van, riding in the back with a metal bench and not much else. despite being indistinguishable from an average human in her smallest state, she must have really pissed someone off to deserve this kind of treatment.

“How's the ride?”

chuckled the driver, Victoria hadn't caught his name however the portly man seemed in good spirits despite having driven for an indeterminate amount of time, she had slept through most of the ride however she was sure that it was at least 4 hours from base “home is right around the corner”

he continued jokingly. Victoria gritted her teeth, he was too happy, she immediately disliked him. Her fingers began to creep toward her pocket, no longer the long talons they had been during the hunt, having transformed back into the normal human fingers present on most humans and a surprising amount of hunters. She wasn’t able to wear clothes in her hunting shape lest it interfere with her ability to camouflage herself, so she had to wear whatever was left for her in the back of the truck, thankfully the clothes that had been left for her were sensible, a pair of camouflage pattern pants and a short sleeved black t-shirt, they had even enclosed a book, even if she had already read everything that Beowulf’s library had to offer. For most people the act of reading symbolised intelligence, for Victoria it signified sheer, unimaginable boredom, a boredom that she had lived with for most of her life, or at least, what she could remember of her life from her first days at Beowulf. While ironic that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a book after holding the same position for days just to get a single shot, the manic energy that had been pent up over those days, even after a full days freedom to hunt as well as a small sleep that energy had not left her and as her muscles woke up she could feel her right leg rapidly vibrating with speed and force that was unattainable for a normal human and it could not be making the trip any more smooth. Opening the solid black cover of the book, as was customary in Beowulf library books, god forbid they allowed some personality, Victoria read the name on the inside, “dark desire”, it was unfamiliar to her which was both good and bad. It was good because it meant that it would be able to catch her attention despite her near photographic memory that came with being a hunter. On the other hand it meant that her mind had subconsciously filed the book as such absolute drivel that it deemed it entirely unnecessary for her to remember. She didn’t as much sink into the fantasy world as she forced her head into its depths and held it down until she passed out, slowly slipping into a trance as the words poured over her mind.

Victoria work for the second time that car trip, pulled from the trance she had forced upon herself. There was no window in the back of the car, instead just the back of what must have seemed like an ordinary van. She stood up after sensing the van had stopped moving, no one had informed her that they had stopped, no one had told her anything. allowing her ears to enhance themselves beyond her most human form, just a small transformation, a full body transformation was painful and more importantly it took time, not much, but she wasn't in the mood to waste time. the enhanced sense was overwhelming in her most basic state, she could hear the heart beats of hundreds of little ants scurrying around, manning their machinery and, in the case of augmented workers, lifting crates of ammunition, and hunter grade weaponry. among all the minuscule specs of human life that she could detect around her environment, there was none in the driver’s seat of the van, meaning she had to get out of here herself.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Victoria yawned examining the door, there was no way of opening it from her end, at least no way that seemed intended. Internally shrugging Victoria raised her leg and, with a dramatic flourish, kicked the door off its hinges, the sound of screaming metal quickly being replaced by yells of surprise. she left the compartment slowly, imperiously, basking in the surprise and fear the radiated from the workers, the cacophony of their beating hearts music to her predator’s ears. They were probably staring they're always said even if she was one of the more human looking hunters, it wasn't every day you got to stare at the freaks. The door had landed several metres away, burying itself into the concrete floor. Victoria could see a labyrinth of steel shelving and walkways much of it full of cardboard and metal crates. even if she couldn't see many of the workers, only a few being on this floor, she could still hear the heartbeat of every single being in that warehouse, there must have been hundreds, each one focused on her. She was pretty sure that she hadn’t been in this warehouse before however it could just be that she had never seen this part of it, all the warehouses look to the same. She had no shoes, but as she walked over the cold concrete floor of the warehouse her feet made a constant clicking due to the hardened, callous soles of her feet that only came from hunting without shoes to conceal her sound. She liked the sound that her feet made against the floor, it made her feel dramatic, like a movie villain, even if it was unnecessary. after a moment of aimless wandering, she finally found a part of the warehouse she recognised, nothing special just another cargo Bay, but this was the cargo Bay that she usually was dropped off at.

from here finding her way into the hunter’s complex was child's play, each turn through the maze of corridors ingrained into her mind, she could navigate this place blindfolded if she wanted to. When she finally found her way to the hunter’s entrance, she had fully transformed into her hunter’s shape, not all hunters had the ability to appear human and seeing hunters able to freely the life they had been barred from angered some of the more monstrous hunters, which coincidentally also happened to be the exact hunters you didn't want to be angry at you. this door was made for hunters, even in her hunters form she still had almost a metre of doorway above her head, the smell of the hunters quarters was like nothing she had ever smelt before, she had grown up here and never had she found anything that could compare, a Hunter's scent was unique, each and everyone did have one cent in common though, a scent that neither humans nor beasts gave off, a thick scent, but also sharp like ozone, there was no word for it but Victoria called it warp. The warp tickled her nose constantly, it was a scent that she never got used to no matter how many times she smelt it her feet now coated in feathers and talons clicked against the floor of the corridor, the floor was made of a material she could not name, but it made her feet click and that made her happy. The corridor was lined with doors that led into rooms that probably had a purpose, but not one that Victoria had any interest in learning about. Victoria finally found her way to the final door, a door that opened into the hunter’s part of the complex, she could hear and smell them for the first time in almost a week, her heartbeat faster out of excitement to be back. These were her people; this was her domain. she held out her talent hand allowing it to be scanned by whatever strange device was inlaid into the doors surface, it was silly really if she really wanted to, she could just tear this door off its hinges, but she respected the rituals of the researchers and with a click and a depressurising hiss, the door opened.