Alter/Native
Title: Hellhound
Word Count: 1904
He skidded around the corner and sprinted down the hallway, the klaxon screaming overhead. Swarms of the resident scientists and pencil pushers scurried past him, heading in the opposite - and ultimately safer - direction, casting worried and knowing glances at him as they went.
To say he wasn't in the best of moods was putting it lightly. Being stuck as Kestrel's errand boy and occasional sidekick was one thing, and mostly tolerable because it meant he would at least get breaks from her. But being stuck in a vehicle with her and her relentless talking for sixteen hours was an entirely different matter, especially when it ended with a mere two hours sleep before being hauled into a shitkicker meeting with Roswell that ended in a three day suspension that would conveniently come into effect after he dealt with whatever had triggered the alarm in the armory.
It was no surprise that Kestrel was waiting at the first locked gate leading into the armory, and he glared briefly at her before swiping his keycard in the door and heading into the hallway.
"Aw, Matty!" she called, chasing after him. "Come on, don't be like that! How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"
"Once would be nice!" he snapped, shoving open the door to the surveillance room. As expected, the screens were showing a mix of static and distorted images. Whatever was wandering around nearby was emitting enough of an AN field to disrupt the cameras.
"I'm pretty sure I at least said it once." She joined him in the room and peered over his shoulder at the screens.
"Pretty sure you didn't," he countered, grabbing the mouse at the closest terminal and clicking through the camera views. Nothing in the vicinity was working, but he could at least see that the labs and administrative areas had been evacuated. "And even if you did, it wouldn't be enough."
"Hey, it's not my fault Ros is an asshole!" She trailed after him as he moved into the guard office, jogging to keep up. "You know how he gets, he's always looking for someone to blame."
"And how convenient that it wasn't you!" He slapped his hand against the large red release button beside the munitions locker, and snatched one of the pulse rifles when the door hissed open. "You know, being that the whole mess in Averly was your fault."
"My fault?" She grabbed a rifle of her own and trotted beside him as he returned to the hallway. "How was it my fault?"
"Seriously?" He stopped in the middle of the hall and gaped at her, ignoring for a moment the wailing sirens above and around them. "Are you intentionally oblivious or just daft?"
"Hey, no need for namecalling." She stuck her lower lip out in her infamous pout, though it only made his blood boil. "And yes, I'm serious."
"Where do I even begin?" he asked, slinging the rifle over his shoulder so he could count off on his fingers. "First, you decide that, oh hey, gathering intel is for sissies -"
"It is for sissies."
"Second, you get us captured, interrogated, and tortured -"
"Okay, I know for a fact I said I was sorry for that one," she defended, hugging the rifle to her chest. "And for the record, people are most honest when they think they're going to die, so that was a legit apology."
"And we wouldn't have even been in that situation if you hadn't decided to pick a fight with a pair of bloody rock giants!" he snapped.
"I could have taken them, too," she mused.
"And see, that's your problem, Kes! It's like you have this physical inability to do things in even a vaguely intelligent manner, and the rest of us -"
"Now wait a goddamn minute," she interrupted, dropping her pouting act in favor of blatant indignation. "I'll admit that I have my flaws, alright? But you haven't complained about the way I do things for six months, and suddenly it's this giant issue?" She paused, smirked, and added, "Pun entirely intended." She giggled, entirely amused with herself. "Besides, it's just a three day, Matty. I'm sure you have enough banked overtime to cover -"
"It's not about the bloody paycheque!" he roared. "Do you have any idea what the transfer office is going to say about this? This could jeopardize my realm pass, Kes!"
"That's what you're so worried about?" she asked, her eyes widening.
"Not a big deal to you, maybe, but I'm not exactly in the mood to get deported!"
"So I'll write a letter," she said with a shrug. "A few recommendations and accolades and they'll approve your extension, no problem."
"Yeah, see, that is so typical... wait, what?" He blinked at her, his rage dropping to a simmer for the time being.
"I said I'll toss a letter in your file to let them know you weren't involved at Averly," she said nonchalantly, checking the charges on the rifle, "and I'll just lift the suspension and say it's mandatory time off for all the overtime you've been putting in." She raised an eyebrow at his shocked expresison and shrugged. "Seriously, it'll take, like, half an hour to fix this. I don't see what you're getting so riled up about."
"You would do that?" he asked, stunned.
"Of course I would. God, what kind of asshole boss do you take me for?" she asked, managing to actually look offended. "Least I could do after you let those giants cut off a few of your fingers."
"Let... I didn't let them do anything!" he sputtered.
"It was a pretty cool trick though, I gotta admit," she mused, starting down the hallway toward the armory. If anything, it made Matthew realize that the alarms were, in fact, still screeching through the long hallways - he stumbled after her with the heavy rifle thumping against his back.
"There was no trick!" he exclaimed.
"Right, like you didn't know your fingers would just grow back."
"I didn't!"
"Really?"
"Yes, really!"
"Oh. Well, lucky you, then!" She paused at the heavy metal armory doors, which had been half melted, half peeled away from the wall, and pursed her lips. "Ouch. Those are gonna cost a fortune to fix." She casually flipped the safety on her rifle and peered around the edge of the door, leaning back as a punctured mess of distorted metal came sailing through the door to crash into the opposite side of the hallway, followed by a long, growling howl from inside the vast room. "Well, shit."
"You really have the authority to clear the suspension from my file?" he asked, feeling his mood lift a little with hope. Kestrel shot him a look that suggested he was a fool for asking.
"Duh," she remarked. "I have the authority to deal with all sorts of fun stuff." Another warped and dented hunk of metal - a munitions box, he realized - came skidding through the destroyed doorway. "Except pissy old hounds."
"Huh?" He leaned around her and peeked into the armory, catching a brief glimpse of a massive black-furred creature gnawing on a crate of pulse cannon batteries. "Holy shit," he hissed as he darted back to the wall beside her. "What the hell is that thing?"
"As usual, he goes by a lot of names," she replied, reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out her palm tablet. A few taps later, and the sirens silenced, allowing them to clearly hear the odd grunts, growls, and moans from the beast. "Gytrash, Dip, Gwyllgi... we tend to call him Old Shuck around here."
"It's a hellhound?"
"Not a hellhound, the hellhound. The folks down under send him up here now and then to cause trouble." She tapped her tablet a few more times, dialing a number. "Thankfully he's totally not our department." As she waited for her call to be answered, Matthew again checked the room - the beast had gone from chewing on the crate to actually devouring the cartridges.
"Does it normally eat batteries?" he asked quietly.
"He'll eat damn near anything," she replied, and forced a wide smile as a face appeared on her screen. "Jerry!" she chirped, trying her best to sound enthused. "Long time no -"
"What do you want?" Jericho demanded cooly.
"A hello would be a nice start?" she suggested. "And maybe, I don't know, coming down here and sending your dog home?"
"That monster belongs to him?" Matthew asked.
"Is that Matthew? I thought he was suspended?"
"Mandatory time off," Kestrel corrected.
"The fuck? That exists?"
"Well, he works a lot of overtime and -"
"Doing what? Sitting in coffee shops and hanging out in antique stores?" Jericho laughed, the sound of it sending a chill down Matthew's spine and making the hellhound howl plaintively. "Whatever, Kestrel. You'll exploit damn near any loophole you can, won't you?"
"Absolutely, including the clause in your contract that says you have to deal with all hellkin." She leaned around the door and pointed the tablet into the room. "Pretty sure he falls into that category."
"Sure thing," Jericho told her. "Does that mean you'll tend to the keeper that brought him here?"
"Keeper?" Matthew asked.
"Shit, I forgot about that," Kestrel said.
"What keeper?" Matthew pressed.
"Can't you deal with him too?" Kestrel asked, batting her eyelashes at the small screen. Jericho simply rolled his eyes.
"Not my department," he told her.
"What about all those meetings about you being a team player?" she asked. "You know you're supposed to - hey! Matty!" She flailed wildly, nearly dropping her rifle, as Matthew leaned over her shoulder and took the tablet from her. Behind them, the mostly-forgotten hound spat the remains of the battery crate into the hallway.
"What's this about a keeper?" Matthew asked Jericho, using his long reach to keep the tablet out of Kestrel's reach. As if on cue, the lights flickered and went out, leaving Matthew and Kestrel in complete darkness save the glow from the screen. Seconds later, a curtain of blue flame fell across a section of nearby wall and Jericho stepped through, tugging on a pair of fingerless gloves.
"Leave it to you to forget all the details," he said to Kestrel as she snatched her small device from Matthew's hand.
"Minor detail," she said, and pointed at the door with her tablet. "There's still that mutt of yours eating our guns."
"First of all, it's not my mutt," Jericho told her. "Secondly, it's hardly a minor -"
A horrible wail echoed through the hallway, not from the hellbeast but from the other direction - the three of them turned to find a bizarre, six-armed creature blocking the only exit, glaive-like weapons clutched in its enormous hands and a shimmering yellow glow radiating from its body. When it saw them, it ground its cloven feet into the metal floor and roared at them, a drawn-out and ear-shattering noise that made Matthew clap his hands over his ears.
"Would that be the keeper?!" he yelled, but he could tell by Kestrel's stunned expression and Jericho's near-giddy excitement that this monstrosity was something neither of them had seen before.
"Well then," Jericho said with a cold grin, tilting his head from side to side to crack his neck. "How about you two stay out of the way? This one's on me."
Word Count: 1904
He skidded around the corner and sprinted down the hallway, the klaxon screaming overhead. Swarms of the resident scientists and pencil pushers scurried past him, heading in the opposite - and ultimately safer - direction, casting worried and knowing glances at him as they went.
To say he wasn't in the best of moods was putting it lightly. Being stuck as Kestrel's errand boy and occasional sidekick was one thing, and mostly tolerable because it meant he would at least get breaks from her. But being stuck in a vehicle with her and her relentless talking for sixteen hours was an entirely different matter, especially when it ended with a mere two hours sleep before being hauled into a shitkicker meeting with Roswell that ended in a three day suspension that would conveniently come into effect after he dealt with whatever had triggered the alarm in the armory.
It was no surprise that Kestrel was waiting at the first locked gate leading into the armory, and he glared briefly at her before swiping his keycard in the door and heading into the hallway.
"Aw, Matty!" she called, chasing after him. "Come on, don't be like that! How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"
"Once would be nice!" he snapped, shoving open the door to the surveillance room. As expected, the screens were showing a mix of static and distorted images. Whatever was wandering around nearby was emitting enough of an AN field to disrupt the cameras.
"I'm pretty sure I at least said it once." She joined him in the room and peered over his shoulder at the screens.
"Pretty sure you didn't," he countered, grabbing the mouse at the closest terminal and clicking through the camera views. Nothing in the vicinity was working, but he could at least see that the labs and administrative areas had been evacuated. "And even if you did, it wouldn't be enough."
"Hey, it's not my fault Ros is an asshole!" She trailed after him as he moved into the guard office, jogging to keep up. "You know how he gets, he's always looking for someone to blame."
"And how convenient that it wasn't you!" He slapped his hand against the large red release button beside the munitions locker, and snatched one of the pulse rifles when the door hissed open. "You know, being that the whole mess in Averly was your fault."
"My fault?" She grabbed a rifle of her own and trotted beside him as he returned to the hallway. "How was it my fault?"
"Seriously?" He stopped in the middle of the hall and gaped at her, ignoring for a moment the wailing sirens above and around them. "Are you intentionally oblivious or just daft?"
"Hey, no need for namecalling." She stuck her lower lip out in her infamous pout, though it only made his blood boil. "And yes, I'm serious."
"Where do I even begin?" he asked, slinging the rifle over his shoulder so he could count off on his fingers. "First, you decide that, oh hey, gathering intel is for sissies -"
"It is for sissies."
"Second, you get us captured, interrogated, and tortured -"
"Okay, I know for a fact I said I was sorry for that one," she defended, hugging the rifle to her chest. "And for the record, people are most honest when they think they're going to die, so that was a legit apology."
"And we wouldn't have even been in that situation if you hadn't decided to pick a fight with a pair of bloody rock giants!" he snapped.
"I could have taken them, too," she mused.
"And see, that's your problem, Kes! It's like you have this physical inability to do things in even a vaguely intelligent manner, and the rest of us -"
"Now wait a goddamn minute," she interrupted, dropping her pouting act in favor of blatant indignation. "I'll admit that I have my flaws, alright? But you haven't complained about the way I do things for six months, and suddenly it's this giant issue?" She paused, smirked, and added, "Pun entirely intended." She giggled, entirely amused with herself. "Besides, it's just a three day, Matty. I'm sure you have enough banked overtime to cover -"
"It's not about the bloody paycheque!" he roared. "Do you have any idea what the transfer office is going to say about this? This could jeopardize my realm pass, Kes!"
"That's what you're so worried about?" she asked, her eyes widening.
"Not a big deal to you, maybe, but I'm not exactly in the mood to get deported!"
"So I'll write a letter," she said with a shrug. "A few recommendations and accolades and they'll approve your extension, no problem."
"Yeah, see, that is so typical... wait, what?" He blinked at her, his rage dropping to a simmer for the time being.
"I said I'll toss a letter in your file to let them know you weren't involved at Averly," she said nonchalantly, checking the charges on the rifle, "and I'll just lift the suspension and say it's mandatory time off for all the overtime you've been putting in." She raised an eyebrow at his shocked expresison and shrugged. "Seriously, it'll take, like, half an hour to fix this. I don't see what you're getting so riled up about."
"You would do that?" he asked, stunned.
"Of course I would. God, what kind of asshole boss do you take me for?" she asked, managing to actually look offended. "Least I could do after you let those giants cut off a few of your fingers."
"Let... I didn't let them do anything!" he sputtered.
"It was a pretty cool trick though, I gotta admit," she mused, starting down the hallway toward the armory. If anything, it made Matthew realize that the alarms were, in fact, still screeching through the long hallways - he stumbled after her with the heavy rifle thumping against his back.
"There was no trick!" he exclaimed.
"Right, like you didn't know your fingers would just grow back."
"I didn't!"
"Really?"
"Yes, really!"
"Oh. Well, lucky you, then!" She paused at the heavy metal armory doors, which had been half melted, half peeled away from the wall, and pursed her lips. "Ouch. Those are gonna cost a fortune to fix." She casually flipped the safety on her rifle and peered around the edge of the door, leaning back as a punctured mess of distorted metal came sailing through the door to crash into the opposite side of the hallway, followed by a long, growling howl from inside the vast room. "Well, shit."
"You really have the authority to clear the suspension from my file?" he asked, feeling his mood lift a little with hope. Kestrel shot him a look that suggested he was a fool for asking.
"Duh," she remarked. "I have the authority to deal with all sorts of fun stuff." Another warped and dented hunk of metal - a munitions box, he realized - came skidding through the destroyed doorway. "Except pissy old hounds."
"Huh?" He leaned around her and peeked into the armory, catching a brief glimpse of a massive black-furred creature gnawing on a crate of pulse cannon batteries. "Holy shit," he hissed as he darted back to the wall beside her. "What the hell is that thing?"
"As usual, he goes by a lot of names," she replied, reaching into her jacket pocket and pulling out her palm tablet. A few taps later, and the sirens silenced, allowing them to clearly hear the odd grunts, growls, and moans from the beast. "Gytrash, Dip, Gwyllgi... we tend to call him Old Shuck around here."
"It's a hellhound?"
"Not a hellhound, the hellhound. The folks down under send him up here now and then to cause trouble." She tapped her tablet a few more times, dialing a number. "Thankfully he's totally not our department." As she waited for her call to be answered, Matthew again checked the room - the beast had gone from chewing on the crate to actually devouring the cartridges.
"Does it normally eat batteries?" he asked quietly.
"He'll eat damn near anything," she replied, and forced a wide smile as a face appeared on her screen. "Jerry!" she chirped, trying her best to sound enthused. "Long time no -"
"What do you want?" Jericho demanded cooly.
"A hello would be a nice start?" she suggested. "And maybe, I don't know, coming down here and sending your dog home?"
"That monster belongs to him?" Matthew asked.
"Is that Matthew? I thought he was suspended?"
"Mandatory time off," Kestrel corrected.
"The fuck? That exists?"
"Well, he works a lot of overtime and -"
"Doing what? Sitting in coffee shops and hanging out in antique stores?" Jericho laughed, the sound of it sending a chill down Matthew's spine and making the hellhound howl plaintively. "Whatever, Kestrel. You'll exploit damn near any loophole you can, won't you?"
"Absolutely, including the clause in your contract that says you have to deal with all hellkin." She leaned around the door and pointed the tablet into the room. "Pretty sure he falls into that category."
"Sure thing," Jericho told her. "Does that mean you'll tend to the keeper that brought him here?"
"Keeper?" Matthew asked.
"Shit, I forgot about that," Kestrel said.
"What keeper?" Matthew pressed.
"Can't you deal with him too?" Kestrel asked, batting her eyelashes at the small screen. Jericho simply rolled his eyes.
"Not my department," he told her.
"What about all those meetings about you being a team player?" she asked. "You know you're supposed to - hey! Matty!" She flailed wildly, nearly dropping her rifle, as Matthew leaned over her shoulder and took the tablet from her. Behind them, the mostly-forgotten hound spat the remains of the battery crate into the hallway.
"What's this about a keeper?" Matthew asked Jericho, using his long reach to keep the tablet out of Kestrel's reach. As if on cue, the lights flickered and went out, leaving Matthew and Kestrel in complete darkness save the glow from the screen. Seconds later, a curtain of blue flame fell across a section of nearby wall and Jericho stepped through, tugging on a pair of fingerless gloves.
"Leave it to you to forget all the details," he said to Kestrel as she snatched her small device from Matthew's hand.
"Minor detail," she said, and pointed at the door with her tablet. "There's still that mutt of yours eating our guns."
"First of all, it's not my mutt," Jericho told her. "Secondly, it's hardly a minor -"
A horrible wail echoed through the hallway, not from the hellbeast but from the other direction - the three of them turned to find a bizarre, six-armed creature blocking the only exit, glaive-like weapons clutched in its enormous hands and a shimmering yellow glow radiating from its body. When it saw them, it ground its cloven feet into the metal floor and roared at them, a drawn-out and ear-shattering noise that made Matthew clap his hands over his ears.
"Would that be the keeper?!" he yelled, but he could tell by Kestrel's stunned expression and Jericho's near-giddy excitement that this monstrosity was something neither of them had seen before.
"Well then," Jericho said with a cold grin, tilting his head from side to side to crack his neck. "How about you two stay out of the way? This one's on me."