MASKING OUR SCENTS

15 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, NIGHT

In the training hall the Black Forest Trainers and Gamma Harry had set up tables where they displayed their gear and stuff... Like imagine a typical Night Leaf bake sale table, but replace the cakes and breads with what looked like clothes in plastic zipper bags, and quite a lot of aerosol spray cans, lined up like tin soldiers. There was also a small pile of disposable latex and what looked a lot like surgical masks, scrubs, and shower caps? Well I'm sure they weren't shower caps. I remembered when Dad came out of the medical tent after being shot at the rogue attack on my pack house, the medical stuff had masks, shower caps, gloves, aprons on. I don't mean like cooking aprons, I mean like art aprons, the kind with long sleeves... I didn't remember seeing any of the wolves in the video they showed us last week wearing plastic shower caps to fight the vampires.

"What's all this?" Beta Lucas asked half jokingly from the other end of the table, "Everything's in sandwich bags."

"Yes, beta." Trainer M was quick to explain, "In masking our scents, the preparation is key. All the gear has to be steam cleaned and then sealed in air tight packaging to avoid contamination."

In which, "contamination" was any wolf scent, both the wearers or anyone else around him.

"Amazing." Beta Gerald marveled, "To be able to mask a wolf's scent. Quite ingenious."

Not that it was the first time somebody tried something like this. The humans did it all the time, in a bid to outsmart wolf/vampire senses, they had pulled all kinds of stunts.

During the great war, one human town bombed the packlands with very strong perfume, this totally messed up the wolves' noses and gave the humans a temporary advantage for their raid. BUT the next day and for days after, the wolves were able to smell down all the humans who had entered with the perfume bomb, and they hunted down every single one of them - all the way across the pack lands. Smells stick - especially distinct strong ones like cheap perfume.

And then there was this smart alec who came up with the idea of smuggling ammunition with strong smelling foodstuff like oranges, fish... you got the idea. They almost got away with it too, until one sharp warrior noticed that the fish smelled bad. The humans thought the stronger the smell the better. They forgot that wolves had brains, "Why are you bringing a truck of rotten fish to the market?" They hadn't even bothered to put ice on the fish.

Later on, someone stole the ammo shipment and sold it on the black market. This was easily tracked simply because the crates still smelled fishy - and I heard, but this could just be gross exaggeration, that when bullets from this shipment were shot, you could still smell something fishy in the gun smoke. Talk about smoking gun evidence! Hahaha.

Till today, the humans had not found a way to successfully mask their scent from us - if they did, its not like we would know. Now that was a scary thought!

"Yes. Up to 98% of the wearer's scent will be masked... At least for the first two hours." Trainer M promised, "We'll do a live demonstration later. For now, please take care not to leave your scent on any of the items on the table."

He lifted his hands to bring our attention to the latex gloves he had on. In other words, DON'T TOUCH. But of course Trainer M could not quite say that directly in Beta Lucas face.

"Yes, don't touch it, Lucas." Gamma Harry, who didn't care for verbal restraint, said, "I have never seen anything like this! If it can really cover a wolf's scent, it would be quite amazing. Imagine if a wolf can sneak around without an scent! He could become a spy!"

Yes. My experience as a dream traveler agreed. I wouldn't say being scentless made you invisible - but to wolves who relied on our noses to "see" the world, being scentless made you translucent. Then again, I couldn't smell anything while dream travelling either - so I was going in half blind.

"Wow, the security would have a headache!" Gamma Harry continued, "How would we smell out the intruders if they have no smell?"

There was uncomfortable silence.

"We, ah... these are only used for vampire fighting purposes." Trainer M decided to clarify, you know, just in case Black Forest was misunderstood for creating gear and equip for shady and underhanded activities.

In theory, most pack wolves would consider spying especially on other pack wolves unscrupulous, particularly during peace times. In practice, Henry had to be getting his intel from somewhere, right?

"Yes, of course." Beta Gerald assured the Black Forest Trainers, "We understand."

"Don't worry, Harry." Dad said, "If there are intruders, we would know."

"Yeah." Beta Lucas was quick to agree, "Its a matter of whether our alpha chooses to pursue it of not."

The Black Forest trainers paused, and the Trainer M swallowed, "Yes, of course. We understand."

What did they understand? I wondered what kind of strange thing they were conjuring in their minds and if it had anything to do with demon armies, death gods, and secret R&D, because if you asked me, I was quite sure Dad and Beta Lucas probably meant something like my wolf radar.

Because I would know if vamps or rogues were entering my packlands - my wolf was territorial like that. Not humans though... my wolf didn't seem to think they were a threat. My wolf apparently never learned its lesson from all the movies I've watched. Ever seen Transformers? All the big metal beasts and the one who turn the tide was a teenage human boy - quite a wimpy one at that. Guardians of the Galaxy? Star Wars? Troll Hunters? Bleach? Okay, so they weren't necessarily 100% humans. Humans were the wildcards like that.

But no, Boo was the type of baddie who would despise the lowly human, and I'm sure this would one day come back and slap her in the face, should I become a villain of a movie plot. Luckily, I knew better than that. I was going to be the good guy.

The other wolves arrived quickly soon after and we took our seats on the bleachers in front of the "bake stand" to wait for the live demonstration to begin. Oh yes, and the lecture... we would have to sit through that too.

My betas were the last to arrive, but just Ben and Harvey who bowed quickly and sat behind me. I was sitting with Dad today. Bell and Ki were late!

"Where's your luna, Sam?" Beta Lucas asked me.

Am I my luna's keeper?

"Apologies." It was Harvey who replied on our behalf, "Luna Bell and Ki has been detained by Alpha Lorent on mindlink. They request we start without them."

Dad nodded, "Yes, alright, lets begin then."

I SHOULD have been relieved that Bell wasn't here. Its not like I wanted to have another malfunctioning episode. Especially not in front of our pack's top leaders, warriors, and the three external trainers form Black Forest, BUT... this didn't make any sense at all, BUT... I kinda wished Bell was here.

Omo, was I missing him?

Urm no. I was just...uh... I just didn't want him to miss out on the training. Yeah. And Ki too. He's making Ki miss the training. Yeah, that was it.

I ain't missing you at all...(missing you).. since you've been gone... away~

Gah!

I don't know if love made the sky bluer or the grass greener, but love liked to play cheesy love songs in your head. It was a terrible disease.

Luckily, Bell and Ki joined us just as Trainer M was wrapping up his lecture on the theory behind masking our scent. My heart sang for joy... But only cos the lecture was over. This had nothing to do with seeing Mate after an agonizing 45 minute separation from him.

{Mate!}

I barely noticed his arrival.

{Mate!}

I don't know that wolf.

Mate didn't sit next to me though. He sat behind me with my betas. Not that I cared, or noticed, AT ALL.

Anyway, to Trainer M's credit, he only took all of half an hour to lecture. I'm sure Beta Lucas would have taken double the time because he would have to repeat all the important points, which naturally had to be every single point. If it were me, I would've covered everything in one sentence.

When getting geared up: Don't touch anything you put on. Don't even breathe on it.

Which I'm sure you could appreciate the impossibility of, but it was possible, Trainer M assured us. They will show us exactly how in a moment. Just give them a moment to prepare.

At this point, the three trainers began wrapping themselves up in full scrubs. First gloves, then masks, shower caps, aprons, and then a second pair of gloves - just in case the first layer had touched their hair or got breathed on.

When they were done, they smelled like plastic and latex, and if I hadn't watched their video last week, I would had assumed their warriors stormed the vamp covens wrapped in disposable plastic fashion.

But no. Now they needed a volunteer.

"Let one of the young ones try it." Gamma Harry graciously offered.

My three betas looked at each other. Poor betas.

"Ben!" Beta Lucas decided.

Hahaha.

So Ben was volunteered to be the demonstration model. He had to get up and stand up front with the three fashionably plastic clad trainers.

Suiting up before a vampire raid required trained assistants who would cover up BEFORE entering what they called a "clean room". Before entering the Clean Room, they would put on the plastic/latex "PPE" and spray down.

Trainer L demonstrated with one of the aerosol cans. It was like hairspray for your entire body. This spray was formulated to replicate a general environmental smell, NOT nothingness, because that would make us smell like a vamp.

How did "general environment" smell like? It was a little like white noise in the background, you know?

Okay, meanwhile, warriors would go through a shower room, be air blown dry, and then sprayed down with parfum de general environment too. They would step directly into the clean room in their birthday suit AKA naked.

Ben nearly gagged at that, but fortunately for him, Trainer L said we would be demonstrating over his clothes. They sprayed him liberally with parfum de general environment though. It made Ben cough.

Then Trainer M unzipped one of the plastic bags and took out what looked like a wet suit - the kind you wear to surf or dive. Ben had to get into it. It should be skin tight. This one was a little too large for Ben. The suit was made of a wire mesh fabric that had been steamed clean to remove all odor. The wire mesh fabric is elastic and did not absorb odor. It came with a separate hood, Ben had to wear a hair net thing and then the matching wire mesh hood. And then "socks" and "gloves", which pulled up to the knees and elbows.

Next Ben had to wear a mask - it was a special one equipped with a carbon filter, and then the computerized goggles.

Now over that, there was another suit. This one was like a one piece romper - like the ones Sabre wore to sleep on cold nights, complete with a hood. But unlike Sabre's fluffy soft PJs, this one looked like it was made from the same material as a black raincoat.

Now Ben was beginning to look like one of the vampire slaying warriors in the video last week. Just a little frumpier because of his own clothes under it. I bet he was hot - as in he had to be sweating under all that.

Lastly, Ben had to wear black boots and black gloves.

In between every layer, he would be liberally sprayed with general environment. Trainer M would spray him with flourish, something with two cans at a time.

Finally, we were all invited to come down to sniff Ben out for ourselves, being careful not to accidentally rub his scent on us back onto him, of course. In other words, DON'T TOUCH.

I had to say, it was a very good mask. Even my alpha nose could not smell Ben under all that. I sniffed carefully at my beta... a bit of metal, chemical, concrete, rubber, water, soil, rocks... wow. If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I was just standing next to an old wall. Which was weird since it was in the middle of our training hall, but still quite good considering that it masked the smell of the entire of Ben's sweaty existence.

They had sprays for various environments - nature, urban, underground, industrial, residential, and even seaside. Trainer M wanted us to note that he had used a mixture of three different scents to create something close to the environment we were in now. It was an art.

Also, they had brought a few cans of vampire repellent as a gift for us. It wasn't good as a mask, but it was a smell that vampires did not like, and would avoid in normal circumstances.

Beta Lucas couldn't resist and shook and sprayed one of them. I had imagined garlic or something like that, but it proved to smell terrible to wolves too - if I had to describe it, I would say it smelled like the juice at the bottom of garbage bins. Very gross. It would probably repel me too.

"Like, why don't we just get ourselves sprayed at by skunks." Ben grumbled - apparently he could smell it from under two layers of masks.

After the mission, the warriors would enter another shower room, strip and shower everything off. They had a special 3 in 1 shampoo that could wash off any odor and leave you smelling fresh and minty.

Which would be weird, unless you were Harvey. Harvey always had a tinge of mint on his scent. Wolves were like that... we had our own special scent. Its supposed to attract our mates. I wondered if that meant I was attracted to salted caramel? The things I had not known about myself!

I wondered what I smelled like? Thanks to Ki's careful curation of my personal bath supplies, I smelled like grassy flowers - I know the label said "Sakura" but the smell was like a meadow without the mud. And all my clothes were lemon scented... Ki knew how to layer the scents too. But what was I under the layers of artificial scents?