THE "SPECIAL" TEAM

16 FEBRUARY, TUESDAY, CONTINUED

The armory was like a very large basement, but the contents were very similar to Night Leaf and Morning Light armories. Gun racks and ammo counters. They didn't have the usual suiting up zones with rows of huge metal wire racks for bullet proof vest and safety equipment.

Instead they had two rows of lockers with combination locks and benches . So it was like armory meets boys locker room. Unlike our warriors, these guys were already suited up. All they had to do was tighten or adjust straps, check they guns, and hang out while waiting...

What were they waiting for?

Someone noticed our entrance, "Sir!"

Immediately, everyone else stood at attention, "SIR!"

"Alpha Sam is here." Theo intoned.

The warriors greeted in unison, "Yo Princess!"

Yeah, I really need a word with my PR department... Hahaha. At this point, I had no idea which genius beta came up with this "Yo Princess" thing... But was I the only one who felt this was weird?

No one else seemed to think twice about it. Definitely not the warriors in the armory. There were about a dozen warriors, they had been chilling along the lockers and benches, but they were all lined up now, unmoving and serious.

I wouldn't be surprised if they thought they were down for inspection. The entire Underground Army seemed to take inspection the way I took my dream travels. I never knew when it would happen, but when it did happen, I didn't feel all that surprised by it anymore.

"Hi." I said. Haha. Yeah. Very Alpha.

But I was never the typical alpha to begin with.

"At ease." Theo told the men, "Our Alpha is here to inspect- "

"Explore." I corrected.

"Explore... our base tonight." Theo allowed.

"Yes," I smiled, "So whatcha doing?"

I had half expected the men to freeze up and not know how to answer me, but I had underestimated them.

"Graveyard shift." A spiky headed wolf answered. He was tall. Like just a bit taller than normal, not too tall to go under a door, but tall enough that I need to look up a little higher than normal to meet his eyes - which he wore a pair of glasses over. I wouldn't say it was weird to wear glasses, but it was very uncommon for wolves to need them. Maybe very elderly wolves for reading... but I've seen many humans wear glasses.

"Welcome to the graveyard shift, Alpha!" Another spiky headed wolf exclaimed, this wolf was also tall - almost as tall as the first one, but he didn't wear glasses. He had the most vivid violet eyes though, "I'm Barry by the way. Four-eyes over there is Ink."

Barry slapped his glasses-wearing friend hard on the back, nearly knocking over his spectacles, and then he slapped another dude who hissed at him, "That's Cobra. Don't mind him, he doesn't talk."

Cobra glared. I nodded and produced my widest smile to counter it.

"This is the Special Team." Theo explained to me, as usual with the fewest possible words. I was beginning to suspect that Theo had a very small daily ration of words, but Theo managed to spare me a few more, "It is also Fluffy and EJ's team when they are here."

Ohhh... as in that kind of "Special".

"We are the only team made up of all delta wolves!" Barry informed me.

All the delta wolves that couldn't be left to lead their own teams, more likely.

"And we get all the special missions." Barry continued.

Oh? Like what kind of special missions? I looked at the three of them with a critical eye. They were definitely strong wolves with bloodline magic even. I thought of Fluffy and EJ... definitely powerful - but super unstable. Hahaha. Exactly my kind of wolves!

"Today is just the graveyard shift though." Barry told me, "With Fluffy and EJ at Night Leaf, there's only four of us left."

I was quite sure I counted three.

"Where is Torque?" Theo asked.

You know you had a "special" team on your hands if their names were Fluffy, EJ, Barry, Ink, Cobra, and Torque.

Suddenly the lights dimmed low and a large garage door opened up on one side. One of the squads had returned, "Squad Griffon returning! All members present and accounted for. Patrol report green."

"Clear." Theo tappity tapped into this trusty tablet, "Next Squad out!"

The six men squad furthest from us stomp into attention, "Squad Calvary ready! All members present and accounted for."

"Go." Theo said.

And they went. Some of them slapping hands with the incoming Squad Griffon as they passed. I watched as Griffon members made a beeline to the ammo counter to report their ammo count. Since none were used, they were all reporting "zero". They also had to show what they had to the wolf behind the ammo counter to prove they hadn't lost any.

Wow, they actually counted their bullets here. I could not imagine our Night Leaf warriors accounting for individual bullets like that. Gamma Harry had ever proudly declared we had lost a total of only three riffles last year.

But now that I thought about it... wasn't that dangerous? What if the rogues found them? Its just three riffles - but that three riffles now pointed at our wolves!

Another squad had arrived. This one I approved of immediately, "Squad Hamburger returning! All members present and accounted for. Patrol report yellow."

"We're up." Barry said.

"Torque's late." Ink sighed.

"Clear." Theo tappity tapped into this trusty tablet, "Next Squad out!"

Just then, like a force of some kind of invisible wind, a blond guy bashed into the armory - I thought the door would break. I wondered if Titanium was like that when he was young.

"Special Team ready!" Barry immediately announced, "All members present and accounted for."

"Go." Theo said, completely ignoring Torque's last second entry.

I caught whiff of the passing mindlinks as the Griffon Squad left the armory, "That's the Special Team for you. They get away with anything."

"If you want you could join them."

"No way... those guys are crazy."

"Yeah, so crazy that even Captain avoids them."

"Bye Theo!" I decided, "I'm going with the Special Team. Tell Stephan I said good job!"

Theo froze. Did he run out of words? Hahaha.

I ran through the garage door, "Hey guys! Wait for me!"

The garage door closed behind me, and I found myself in a cave. The special team was climbing into an open jeep, I climbed on the back.

"Alpha?" Barry said, he turned around from the front passenger seat, "Alpha you can't come with us! You're a girl!"

"Why? Are you going to the boy's washroom?" I asked, "It's fine, it's fine. I'm the Alpha. Just drive."

"The Alpha?" Torque asked, "Alpha Sam?"

Ink stepped on the gas and we were driving out.

"Stop, Ink!" Barry said, "We can't take her!"

"We are already 4 minutes and 38 seconds off schedule." Ink informed the team, "We cannot afford any further delay."

"As in OUR ALPHA SAM?" Torque yelled over the wind, "Ás in LUNA BELL'S MATE, ALPHA SAM?"

"Yes!" I yelled back, "Nice to meet you!"

"Oh wow!" Torque said, "I can't believe it! What's an Alpha doing out on a Graveyard Shift?"

"Don't worry, Alpha." Barry tried to reassure me, "We're strong. We will protect you."

"What's the Graveyard shift?" I really had to ask now.

"It's the patrol between 1 to 5am." Ink explained.

Oh was that all? No graveyards? And probably no anything exciting. We stopped the car behind some trees. I could see tire tracks left from the last patrol. The guys got off and covered the jeep with a net and then some of the branches left on one side - just for this purpose. It was all very standard protocol.

Cobra disappeared the moment our jeep was hidden. I could still sense his wolf, but only very vaguely.

"Cobra's gone." I marveled.

"Don't worry about him." Barry was quick to reassure me, "Cobra is like your shadow, he'll reappear soon enough."

{Bloodline power}

Yes, I guessed as much, but it was pretty amazing. I wondered whether Cobra could disappear from vamp radar too. We won't need all that gear from Black Forest anymore.

"Anyway, you're safe with us." Barry told me, "Torque and I are the strongest wolves in the Underground."

I nodded. Barry and Torque radiated raw physical strength. They were the brawn type wolves like Titanium, Hank, and Flynn. Wolves imbued with supernatural physical strength were natural warriors.

"What's Ink's specialty?" I asked.

"I am the brains of the Special Team." Ink informed me.

"He's really good with numbers." Barry explained, "He's like a human calculator."

"I never understand him." Torque admitted, "But he has a good arm."

"Calculated precision will easily cut down brute strength." Ink said.

Ink was weird. He had glasses and talked like a nerd. But he was spiky hair, tall, and covered from head to toe with... well, ink. As in tattoos... and pretty bad*** ones too. Besides a vampire disc shaped badge on the side of his neck, he had black patterns carved all over, all the way to his jaw. Even the back of his ears. I could see them on his hands too - That was all the skin his showed, but wouldn't you naturally assume he had ink under his clothes too?

And Ink was strong too. He was tall, broad shouldered, and his movements were that of a trained fighter. Warrior on the outside, and nerd on the inside?

Like I was a cute girl on the outside, and an alpha wolf on the inside? I wondered if I was weird the way Ink was weird too.

We were just walking now. Patrolling a standard route, just like we would on Lullaby Route. Follow the patrol path, check signs of intrusion, and be a general deterrent for baddies. It was common knowledge that Rogues tend to stay clear away from patrol routes.

I couldn't smell anything since I was dreaming, which was frustrating, but otherwise, I was enjoying the mini adventure. This wasn't my territory, but it was a temporary and hidden base, so patrolling also involved hiding our most obvious tracks. I thought of the jeep's parking lot and felt quite sure it was a dead giveaway. But it was parked much deeper in, so as long as we didn't leave tracks back to the jeep, I guess the local wolves here wouldn't find the base.

They had to know we were here though! Funnily enough, no one in the Red Packlands had said anything about it. Actually, if I recalled the invoices I saw earlier, some of our clients were from the Red Packlands.

The Red Packlands was a very tolerant land. They were the mind your own business kind of place. The packs here ran their own towns. The humans had towns too, as did the rogues. Anyone could start a village out here and call himself the chief... We learned this in Mr Lark's geography class. Whether wolf, human, rogues or whatever.

Less than 500 population = Village

More than 500 population, connected roads and amenities, and public governance system = town.

There were no cities in the Red Packlands, but there were two very large towns.

It was very confusing, even the local leadership were confused. They spent much of the Red Packland Conferences arguing who was really a town, and who was just an overpopulated village. Their Red Packland Conference were always televised, and Dad and Beta Lucas and the elder wolves liked to keep the television on, "in case they talk about something important."

By this definition, Night Leaf was probably a village - even if you combined it with Morning Light. I mean, we had all the amenities of a well established town, but not the population size. Oh, unless you counted Gate City's residents... which would make us a City? I had no idea.

But the Green Packlands had a simpler system for classifying settlements. All the major packs had towns. Gate City was an open shared commerce space. Maybe the minor packs had villages. We never called it that though. We never really labelled our settlements, it was just home.

But its way different in the Red Packlands where they were proud of hosting diversity.

I mean, there were rogue towns here! One of them was particularly notorious, and called "Black Rogue City". It was a town at most really. No one knew exactly how many rogues were in Black Rogue City. Their leader didn't even show up at the Red Packland Conference. I heard you could buy or sell anything at Black Rogue City, and only the strong survived.

But if the Red Packlands could accept a Black Rogue City as just one of the diverse settlement it hosts, I suppose an underground fight dog army wasn't such a big deal, probably just another new town... I mean, village.

We were on Stephan's packlands. The now disbanded Cloud Forest Pack. A long time ago, this was a pack noble warrior wolves. I wondered how they got to a state where their young alpha had to exchange himself to be sold as a fightdog.

It's not like Stephan was the type of Alpha who could not control his wolves, or was lacking in administrative abilities - I've just seen his files and his men - everything in the Underground was immaculate. My luna chose well to make him captain.

I heard myself sigh. That only goes to show, nothing is guaranteed in this world.

Cobra! He had reappeared on my radar, just in front of us.

Cobra dropped out of a tree.

"Aruugggghhhh..." Barry yelled, and fumbled not to drop his gun.

Torque struck without thinking, charging forward and ramming Cobra with the butt of his gun.

"Stop! Its just Cobra." Ink sighed and massaged his forehead with his fingers, "Can you two use your heads before your... other parts?"

"He startled me." Barry complained.

"Sorry." Torque grinned sheepishly, "Force of habit."

Hahahaha. I couldn't tell if he made that pun on purpose or not, but get it? Torque had a "force of habit"?

Cobra picked himself up and glared at us hissing. He looked damn p***ed.