-Sahara desert, underground base a.k.a. Hellhole
The door of the conference room opened and a chubby man in an overly expensive suit and custom made Italian shoes entered. The door was closed quietly behind him by his assistant, a petite blond woman in an equally expensive suit and black Gucci shoes.
The man nodded his hello to the nine men in the room, going to his seat immediately. The big leather chair at the head of the oval table squealed under the man’s weight even though it was brand new, hell it even had the smell of new leather and polish.
The assistant sat down at the chair to the left of the man, her chair not even making a sound. She put down a file on the polished, dark wood table and adjusted her already perfect, eye-pulling bun on the top of her head.
The man, or Mr. Green, was the man in charge of Hellhole. Hidden in the Sahara desert- the better term would be under it- Hellhole was the hottest of the three facilities and there from it got its name. That and the hellish conditions the Ultimates lived in.
“What’s going on now?” Brock decided to ask as the silence in the room stretched for several minutes.
Mr. Green looked at him, the man’s brown eyes looking into Brock’s mismatched ones as he cleared his throat and then began speaking, “As you already may know, Commander Michaels, we have recently captured an intruder on the eastern quadrant. He was with two other men and we believe they were there to collect information about our operations and the facility. We couldn’t get anything out of them about who sent them and what their plans were, so that’s why we called you.” Brock held himself back from snorting.
They will never learn. There was no use in trying to beat the information out of a loyal servant that was more afraid of the master he was serving then the hands that were beating him. And they will never learn to call them before they do the damage and not after. Brock was getting tired of cleaning up their shit.
“And what do you want us to do about that? You want me to let Pierce have a go with them? If that’s it, let me tell you that there won’t be much of the intruders left when he’s done.” Brock nodded his head towards one of the two mountain brothers that was sitting in his chair, smirking like the cat that ate the canary. Zeke, his twin, was sitting next to him, not even paying attention to the conversation, seemingly uninterested.
The twins were the biggest on their team. At the time they first came to the laboratory- that was when their team was just being formed- the two received the standard treatment for the Ultimates and their strength, speed and sense were enhanced. Soon, the laboratory and everyone on the team figured out that the twins did best with the ‘basics’. They didn’t want the claws or the mental abilities. They wanted raw strength and lightning speed. And they sure knew how to use them.
Former members of the 1st SFOD-D- or commonly known as Delta Force- they already had extensive knowledge of martial arts and close combat skills they needed to use their new ‘abilities’. Though it took them some time to learn how to control their strength and not crush everything they touched. They were, of course, given more strength, speed and agility than the ‘basic’.
“No, no.” Mr. Greed hurried, “Your assignment is finding the one who sent the intruders and eliminating them.”
“Isn’t that the same?” Atticus, a former NAVY “SEAL” asked, a frown on his face. The man was a pain in the ass to say the least. Out of all the men in the team, he was the most problematic. He was also highly mentally unstable. It was something that was very obvious to anyone that saw him.
“No, it is not.” Brock could see Mr. Green was getting impatient and angry. Their superiors didn’t like to be asked questions so much. But fuck them. It wasn’t like any of the guys cared. They were all already leading fucked up lived in fucked up conditions so it wasn’t like it could get any worse.
When they first volunteered for this, they were all looking for a way out of the military. They hated the rules and guidelines and they hated that they didn’t have as much power as they wanted to have. Power hungry would be the best term to describe them.
And then the laboratory found them. Under the guise of a pharmaceutical company, there was a laboratory that rid the world of its paranormal beings. It was something none of them ever imagined could be real, but it was.
When they were first experimented on, it seemed like nothing. But soon, everything started to change. The experiments became more and more painful and more and more tiring, until finally, they were made into what they were today. Killing machines of the best kind.
There were nine of those killing machines in this facility. And all nine of them were murderers. Of course, they were doing the right thing, but still. The experiments and tests that the scientists still ran on them sometimes agitated the men.
It was mostly because of the pain. Not that they couldn’t handle a bit of hurt, they were all ex-special forces, but the drugs, chemicals, enhancers and surgeries the scientists did on them took a toll on their bodies. And their minds.
Especially if they invented a new drug or came up with a new way of making them better, stronger, faster. None of them had it easy, and there was no way of getting out of this either. Because once you enter the laboratory, you can’t get out. If you do, you become a Failure. That means that a person doesn’t want to work for the laboratory anymore. And under the cover of ‘brining you back’, they send out Ultimates, the best of the best, the ultimate and enhanced soldiers, to exterminate you.
Safe to say, that none of them could leave as they wished. As tight as their group was, if one left, all of them would leave, and then a shit-storm of epic proportions would be let loose.
“And how do you expect us to fid whoever sent the bastards?” Atticus asked, leaning back in the uncomfortable black chair, “It would take weeks of hacking and tracing for us to even find a link to whoever it is, let alone locate him.”
Atticus was an impatient man. A trait he shared with Leon, the man with the best eyes. A sharp-shooter of sorts. A former MOS 0317, he already came with the propositions of a shooter and a marksman. They only enhanced his ability. But something went wrong with the operation as his eyes were now too sensitive to light. He needed to wear sunglasses even indoors. But the perks of the mistake was that his eyes and his brain could now do a lot more things than a normal humans.
“You’re going to use the intruder we captured.” Mr. Green sneered, “Make them lead you to their leader. The plan is already approved and details are waiting for you in the holding cell fifty seven, along with the intruders and everything else you will need to know.” When no one else said anything, there was a loud ‘dismissed’ and the men got out of their chairs and stormed out of the room.
“For fucks sake they’re annoying.” Axel growled, massaging his temples, “The blond bitch spent the entire meeting thinking about who she would fuck first.” he shook his head. The brain experiments the scientists did to him had the desired effect.
Axel could now read people’s minds without a problem. It worked on paranormal creatures as well, if they didn’t have some magic concealing their minds or something similar. The only side-effect of that was that if Axel let his concentration slip all of the loud thoughts would attack his mind and he would pass out or something worse.
“I know.” Jax shook his head as the group went into the elevator. Brock stood in front and pressed the button for two levels lower. “I hate the cells. The smells from there always make me nauseous.”
Jax was the team’s best tracker. With senses enhanced more than with anyone else and something that could only be called a sixth sense, he was well suited for the job. That also meant that Jax physically couldn’t stand any loud noises or any strong smells.
The nine man team was divided into three man cells when they needed to go on several missions at once. Reid and Zayden were useful or those situations as they were both equipped with telekinesis and the ability to communicate with each other telepathically. The scientists that did experiments on the two of them said it was because the electric currents they were letting through their brains at the same time were connected to the same source. Somehow those electric currents managed to change and connect something in both of their minds.
Too bad Atticus’s lunacy couldn’t be contributed to the experiments that were made on him. The way his nails grew out into fifteen inch black claws made him a perfect assassin, but it was not the reason he was considered crazy.
The elevator stopped and Brock got out first, going left and passing cell after cell. He stopped looking inside them a long time ago. He didn’t want the constant feeling of nausea in his stomach whenever he thought about what he saw in a cell. Or what he smelled or heard.
He didn’t feel pity to the disgusting creatures, only hate. But seeing them beaten, bloody and mutilated did something to stir up his gut and make him want to throw up on the pristine and clean white floor of the cell level.
He also didn’t like seeing the scientists that worked on this level. He didn’t like seeing any scientists, but these especially. They were the ones that made him into the freak he was now. Though he had a feeling that there wasn’t a scientist in the building that hasn’t experimented on him, these brought him the most pain.
He made it to cell fifty seven. This one wasn’t like the rest which were built more like prison cells with bars and chains. The only indication that this was a holding cell was the bold, thick writing on the heavy white door that said ‘cell no. 57’.
As Brock stopped at the door, he hoped that the intruders were shifters or vampires or something else that healed fast. He really hated seeing their faces looking like hamburger meat. Breathing in on instinct, he cursed himself and tried to steel his mind for what was waiting for him inside.
He didn’t expect the nice scent to tickle his sense of smell. It was covered with the smell of sweat, blood, chemicals and whatnot, but it was still there. The smell of the earth, something fresh, something that made Brock’s hand stop just inches above the hand scanner on the door.
“What’s wrong?” Axel asked from behind Brock.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Brock answered and cleared his throat, “You stay here. I’ll go in and get what we need.”
He didn’t wait for a reply as he pressed his palm onto the identification pad. There were several clicking and a whizzing sounds and then the door opened. Brock stepped in, the door closing behind him with a soft whoosh.
There were three men in the medium sized room, two scientist and two guards. They will really never learn. The three men, all of them wolves- Brock knew their scent well- could do some serious damage if they got loose.
It didn’t matter. Only one of the men got Brock’s attention. His body was tied to one of the metal tables in the center of the room, leather straps making sure he couldn’t move his arms, legs, torso or head. He was also drugged, or so Brock hoped. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if the men weren’t drugged.
They were all naked, with a white sheet covering their groins. For a moment, Brock almost got pissed at the scientists for taking the clothes off the wolf with the nice scent, but he caught himself before that could happen and buried the senseless anger deep inside of him.
He would have to kill them even before they told him where their Alpha and pack were. And he really didn’t want to kill the man with the nice scent. He didn’t know why though. Brock hated the man’s kind, he killed them for a living, so the fact that he didn’t want to kill this man was confusing to him.
The wolf looked to be about twenty seven, Brock’s age, but he was sure that the mutt was older. The young appearance was due to shifters aging slower than humans. As in, they almost didn’t age at all. How old the werewolf truly was, Brock didn’t know.
The man was built. His muscles were almost as big as Brock’s and the Commander was sure that the man was also an inch or two taller than his six-five form. There were tribal tattoos forming a sleeve of the wolfs right arm. The tattoo caught also a piece of his chest.
But the most characteristic thing Brock could notice were the red streaks through the man’s ink black hair. It was a lot longer than Brock’s, who had it in a military buzz cut. He never let his hair grow out like this, but on the wolf it looked wonderful.
And that was what worried him. Brock wasn’t gay and he never found a man attractive. He wasn’t a homophobe either, but it never appealed to him to even try anything with a man. What was worse, he was acting like this for a paranormal creature. He killed paranormal creatures, he didn’t fuck them.
Brock shook his head and made his way past the scientists and the guards towards the small metal table in the corner of the room. There was a white and pristine file on the table and if Brock couldn’t see the white papers sticking out of the bottom of the file, he would’ve thought it was empty.
“Before we go anywhere I’m going to need those three in a questioning room or a cell, whatever you prefer, but they need to be awake. And clothed.” Brock baked out, hoping that his voice was as strong as he wanted it to be. Even though the wolves didn’t have a scratch on them, Brock knew they were beaten and many more things he didn’t want to even think about.
“Why would you need them there?” one of the scientists asked. If he remembered correctly, this was the one that was in charge for Jax until he wasn’t transferred to the captive division because Jax hated him so much he wanted to kill him any time they were around each other.
“Because I need to know where to start.” Brock deadpanned and made his way to the door, “You have thirty minutes.” He said and pressed the palm of his hand to the identificator again and walked out of the door.
His men were waiting for him, some leaning on the wall, some in a rigid military stance. There were no chairs in the hallways of the cell level. Nothing there was built for comfort or any kind of security or peace.
When Brock opened the file he just found three papers in it. Each paper was a form filled out with the necessary information about the three wolves from the room. Basically nothing was said about the wolves. No names, no age, no place of residence, nothing. The only thing that was there was the place of capture. Coordinates to be exact.
“We don’t know anything. You have thirty minutes to get ready and then you come back here. We’ll be starting from scratch. That means that we’ll be questioning the three in there for at least some basic information. If Axel doesn’t manage to get anything out of them, then we’ll do it the original way.” The men nodded and they were on their way to their quarters one level up.
Brock typed in the security code for his door and it unlocked. He pressed the door handle and entered the dark room. He turned on the lights and took a look around the sparsely decorated space. The ‘apartment’ consisted of a living room that connected to a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom.
There was a sofa the color of white coffee pushed up against the left wall from the door. In front of it was a small, wooden coffee table and then a television set up the right wall. The living room wasn’t that much used and neither was the kitchen as he spent most of his time training and he ate in the mess hall.
From the living room went a hallway that branched out into two rooms- the small bathroom and the bedroom. The bathroom had a shower, a sink and a washing machine. The bedroom wasn’t anything better; a bed Brock barely fit in and a closet filled with more weapons than clothes.
Brock made his way into the bedroom and got a black duffle bag from under the bed. In it, he put several uniforms and what little he had of civilian clothes. If he needed more, he would just have to buy more on the road. His weapons he put in the side pockets.
He decided he wouldn’t carry that much weaponry this time as there will probably be weapons on the private jet and the vehicles that will await them when they got to wherever they were going. One of the things the laboratory knew how to do was give its soldiers a lot of fun toys to play with.
After he got ready, he had twenty minutes left, so he took off his already filthy clothes and went into the bathroom. Even with the air-conditioning in the facility, heat and humidity was still in the air and clothes got stinky pretty fast.
He stepped into the shower and turned on the water, letting it run down his body. The water curved where his muscles curved and it dipped where his muscles dipped. It made the black dragon curling around his left arm and then going across his upper back and then again curling around his right, shine even more.
His mind wandered off to his new assignment. He didn’t know what he was getting into this time. Brock and his team will be going in blind. The wolves could be aggressive, angry, or just waiting to take them out. There was a possibility that the wolves would just lead them to a trap.
The glass shower door shook and Brock’s eyes snapped open. He cursed his lack of control lately and turned the hot water off, instead letting the cold calm him down. In his line of business, shit could get real really fast, and he wasn’t a fan of surprises.
Brock stood in front of cell number fifty seven, with five of his men. They were five minutes early and Axel, Jax and the twins always came exactly on time. That was probably the only thing the four former DELTA FORCE soldiers had in common.
When one of the three guards exited the cell was when the four showed up. The guard just nodded to the men and made a motion with his head for the team to follow him. They passed several cells before the guard stopped in front of an interrogation room. He took out his verification card and pushed it inside the narrow slot. The previously red light blinked red and the steel-enforced door opened.
The interrogation cells weren’t the same as they were with humans. These were made for paranormal creatures that were very strong and had the tendencies to attack their captors. So these cells were designed for said paranormal creatures.
There were three holding posts on the three walls of the room that were meant to hold the creatures while the interrogator does his job. In the middle of the room was a metal table with the ‘tools’ the interrogator would need for the interrogation.
Brock held up one finger to his men, signaling that only team one would be entering the room. If all of them entered it would become too crowded and he didn’t want that. The Commander, Atticus and Axel left their bags in front of the door and entered the room. Brock nodded to the guard and the door closed.
The men were chained o the holding posts, still on drugs that made them kind of loopy, so to say, but let them remain conscious. When team one entered, they slowly raised their heads as one, measuring the newcomers in the room.
Brock was sure he stared for longer than necessary. It was just that the black eyes didn’t want to let him turn his head. The question that was running through his mind before of how they were going to keep the wolves in check on their trip was forgotten as the back eyes followed every move and shift of his body.
Axel’s cough finally snapped him out of it and he shook his head. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve said that he saw a slight smirk on the man’s face, but that couldn’t be it. He decided not to worry himself with things like these, and stepped forward.
“I am Commander Brock Michaels, leader of the Ultimate team.” He began, trying to focus on a spot above the wolf’s head,” My assignment is to find whoever sent you and eliminate them. For that, I’m going to need your help. Now, you can help me willingly, or I can make you help me. You can help yourselves and save your asses the experimenting or you can be uncooperative and face a fate worse than death.”
A loud, almost maniacal laugh filled the room, making Brock snap his eyes downward to the, now grinning, wolf. The sound amused Brock and confused him at the same time. The wolf’s expression was also amusing and Brock wanted to curse himself.
“Sweetheart, do you really think you could take out a whole pack?” the wolf laughed again, sending shivers down Brock’s spine, “If I wasn’t all drugged up I could take the three of you out along with the six waiting outside and the measly guard.”
Brock growled, almost losing control again. “I don’t care about what you have to say mutt, I’m just giving you a chance to save yourself the pain.”
“Oh, we’ll help you, don’t worry. But it won’t be because we want to save ourselves from the pain. It’s because we want to see how our alpha tears you to pieces when you come to his territory.” One of the other wolves snarled with a smirk.
“I wouldn’t bet on it.” Atticus snarled back and Brock had to count to ten to keep from killing the wolves. In his opinion, they gave in to easily, but he would take them any way he could get them. Even if it meant suffering the idiocy and bantering between his men and the wolves that would surely ensue.
The team exited the room and Brock immediately gave the command to the guard that he wanted the men on the private airstrip above the facility in ten minutes, fully clothed and off drugs. He didn’t want to end up in the middle of BFE if the mutts were on rugs and didn’t know which way was us and which way was the ocean.
And ten minutes later, the air left Brock’s lungs as the three wolves exited the small guard shack that served as the entry into the facility from the airstrip. Two of the wolves he didn’t pay attention to, but the one with the nice scent demanded his attention.
Brock was right when he assumed the man was taller than him, not by much, but he still was. He was wearing the usual black uniform the laboratory gives it’s men consisting of a black t-shirt, black cargo pants and combat boots. On top of that, he wore a leather jacket and sunglasses.
There was a slight breeze blowing over the Sahara desert, lifting the small grains of sand and transporting them to random directions. That same breeze was playing a game of chase with the wolf’s hair.
And then Brock noticed that he doesn’t even know the men’s names. That would become a problem if he wasn’t planning on calling them pain-in-the-ass, asshole and sex-on-legs. Thank his sanity for forbidding Axel to ever read his mind.
“Are we just going to stand here all day or are we gonna get a move on?” the wolf that hasn’t spoken until now said. His blond hair was a sharp contrast to the other two wolves black. They were all about the same size, there was maybe an inch or two difference.
“We’ll be going.” Brock said, shooting a look at the wolf, “But after you tell me your names. I would prefer to call you by them then one of the creative nicknames one of my men comes up with.” Even if that was the case, Brock knew one of the halfwits would come up with a nickname that would stick.
The wolf with the nice scent chuckled and put his hands in his pockets, “Alaric. I’d be lying if I said it was nice to formally meet you.” Brock shook his head and refrained from strangling the wolf. He looked at the other two with a raised brow.
“Dominic.” Came from the one with the blind hair and “Brom.” From the last wolf. Alaric, Dominic and Brom. They’re going to be easy to remember. He wasn’t sure how easy they would be to kill though.
One look at a still smirking Alaric and he wasn’t sure he would be able to kill them at all.