Bound by Pride Ch. 04

Dave gave her a perplexed look.

Electra sighed; she had never had to go into all this with him, and she knew her education had been completely different to his. While he was still learning his ABC's she was learning magical law and its effect on what was possible and what wasn't. "Magical law and Natural Law states that you can not fundamentally be what you are not. If you are born one way, you can't force yourself to be another. For example I was born gay, I've always known that my soul mate is a woman, I could never be straight, and I would be denying what I fundamentally was, if I tried."

Dave nodded he was following.

"Okay so Ma's will was so strong that she gained what she wasn't ever meant to have, become what she was never meant to become. She gained a beast and it is that beast which makes us Were, she can turn someone, make a Were, if she bites them but her scratch is harmless. The more powerful she gets the bigger her beast gets but she can control how big she wants to get. She did the impossible."

"So how does this relate to why Rhiannon can't do anything about the guns?" A man she didn't know asked.

"Grandma can't do it because she is bound by her beliefs of what she can and can't do. She believes she can't do both so she can't. If she has even a hint of doubt going into this she wouldn't be able to it, even if she had done it before. She knows she can stop everyone from running because she didn't even consider that she couldn't, then she proved she could. Doubt controls Ancient abilities, if they don't think they can do it... they can't even if they tried, eventually they could overcome this but we don't have the time for her to try to overcome it. Ma on the other hand can do anything because when you can do the impossible anything is possible... she never has doubts... how can she when she knows she defied nature, genetics and magical law all in one moment of pure thought and will." She finished on a note of pure admiration, her Ma had defied everything she had been taught and still defied it, and it's what made her such an awesome leader.

"Why can't we get your Ma here then?" The man she didn't know asked.

She shuddered as she thought about the political mine field her mother was about to navigate. "Because she is dealing with a problem that makes this one simple in comparison."

"Bull shit..." he scoffed, "we are breaking up an organised crime ring. Nothing she is doing can compare to this."

She shook her head slightly, "You don't understand, my Ma may not be breaking up a possible world wide syndicate, but what she is doing tonight is a thousand times more difficult and fraught with more danger than what we are about to do. She's working hard to keep a pride war from breaking out, no easy feat when it's a pride of tigers who have been split down the middle and then been forced to remain together because their Alpha wasn't old enough for them to break away. Who, when they learn what had happened to their alpha, will go into a rage and want nothing more then blood for retribution. She's stopping it from turning into a blood bath."

"Doesn't seem so dangerous." he said unimpressed.

She glared at him although with her glasses he would never know. Dave on the other hand, knew, she got a look about her when she was glaring, a look he was quickly beginning to recognise as being dangerous as she would lash out and break something if what was pissing her off wasn't removed. "And what do you know about Were? Did you know that a split in any pack was unheard of until eight years ago? That that pride has been on the constant edge of a blood bath ever since Mayhem was sold into this ring. That a Were feud is as dangerous as a race war. Only it will be Were fighting and since we're out in the open now we won't try to conceal it, it will be on the streets and it will be bloody. It takes a lot to down a fury filled Were and Mayhem's followers won't care if that person didn't know, that they weren't involved, guilty by association."

She continued to glare as she spoke. "Not to mention the danger of revenge feud, anyone who lost a family member who was outside of this pride is allowed to call for the death of whoever they choose to blame, it will snow ball until it involves every Were family in the world. We can all trace our family lines back to each other; it will be as if there is a massive free for all battle. Ma is trying to prevent that."

Rhiannon walked over and rested a calming hand on Electra's shoulder; Vivian joined her placing her hand on Electra's other shoulder. Electra felt the anger in her dissipate as the two Ancients worked on removing her anger, slowly letting it slide from her mind. She was no longer furious, with that man she didn't know, who was questioning her mother's dedication for doing the right thing. Amy was doing the right thing, she had done everything she could to make this raid a success just as she was doing everything in her power to starve off a possible Were war.

Were wars were not uncommon... well... at least they weren't a thousand years ago when times were much, much darker. It was the possibility of another, in this time of understanding and reasoning, which was making everyone who knew about it on edge. She knew the Alpha's would have drawn the same conclusions she had, that letting this get to the point of bloodshed was not in the interests of them as a people, in fact it would be down right immoral to allow it. It was why they were putting a heap of space between the two halves, and why they would not allow them to see Mayhem, not until they knew they had Darrel taken care of to satisfy those who would be eager for blood.

"Ignore him; he doesn't know everything like we do." Dave told her, telling everyone in the room to drop it now and that he was firmly on Electra's side.

Her phone started to ring; she dug it out and flipped it open. "Hey Ma, what can I do for you?"

"Just a heads up, I think Lupa might be in the auction pens..."

She went still, "but I thought... he isn't real."

"According to Ghan he is and he vanished about the same time everyone else did. He won't use his powers to free himself so you will have to free him."

Electra nodded to herself, "How is Mayhem?"

"She's asleep, we're going to move her in a moment and go back to the manor. It's a more defendable position than the town house."

"Thanks for the heads up Ma." She hung up and turned to Rhiannon, "Lupa is real?"

Rhiannon nodded, "I haven't met him though, and Noah has more experience with him. It was Lupa who helped him with gathering animals for the ark."

Electra stared in surprise, "but... I thought those stories were just myths, they were only mentioned in Were and Other history Volume One, but not in any detail only as a myth."

"Because the Merlins were asked not to put him in the histories, to keep him hidden and safe. However, we couldn't keep him from the myths and legends passed down, nor could we keep him out of your own folk lore. It would have been not only impossible but it would have been detrimental." Vivian explained.

Dave frowned, "Who is Lupa?"

Electra turned to him. "Lupa...? He is the strangest Were of all and possibly the oldest immortal."

Dave waited for Electra to start explaining but when she stopped, he knew he had to prod her into a more extended answer, "We have the time you may as well tell me the story."

She sighed, "You know all those books I gave you when we became partners?"

He nodded; he had slogged through at least half of them. "I've read the book your Ma wrote, Were and Other history One and Two and that book by that woman..." he racked his brain for a moment. "Jacquelyn... something." he added.

"You haven't started the small blue book, Myths and Legends." Electra asked.

Dave shook his head.

"Okay, I'll give you a run down but you really need to read the story." She took a deep breath. "Back when Were and man were just starting their different paths a magnificent wolf ran wild with his pack, his coat was silver and shone like moonlight in the night. He was strong, big, and different. For years, he ran as a wolf but one year he was hunting alone, just scouting around. A woman appeared in front of him from out of a beam of moonlight. He watched her, curious. She told him to come closer and told him his story. How she had craved to have a child but knew if she did the other, gods would twist her child into their own instrument. So she had decided to hide her child among her creatures, the wolves who sung to her and to keep him safe she had put his soul into the body of a wolf, but in time he would shed his wolven form for that of a man." She finished.

Rhiannon turned to Dave, "There is more but that is the most important part, Were have always been men who turn into animals, Lupa is an animal who turns into a man."

He frowned, "So his human side is his alter ego. Not the wolf."

Electra shook her head. "Nope, he doesn't really have a wolf mind and a human mind he just has one mind, the mind of a human who has lived as a wolf."

Dave gave her a confused look, before she could expand on her explanation he jumped in to stop her. "Let me read the story first then I'll ask questions. It's the little blue book with silver leaf right."

She nodded.

****

She waited in the van with half a dozen others, waiting for the right time to storm the building. Already they had hacked the security camera's surrounding the building. They now controlled what the cameras showed to the Security in the building. A couple of Elementals had done a breeze through, where they released their physical bodies and became nothing more than a wisp of wind, just to confirm what Mayhem had told them of the warehouse as well as to see if there were any goons doing patrols. There were none outside the building and only minimal security inside the building. They were acting on the premise that less is more, the less they drew attention to themselves the more chance they had of not drawing unwelcome attention.

She was beginning to get annoyed with a man who was chewing noisily on gum. She wanted to snatch that gum out of his mouth and jam it up where the sun doesn't shine.

Rhiannon shifted a little in the cramped space. "Please... please let me make us have some more space." She begged as soon she was going to need room to concentrate.

"Make room?" the heavily armed man chewing gum asked. "Honey we're squeezed in like sardines."

Vivian chuckled, "Do you watch TV?"

He nodded with a bored expression, in his book only weirdos didn't watch TV.

"Ever seen Doctor Who?" She asked calmly as her will started to alter the internal properties of the van. She knew what she was about to do was going to startle them but she didn't really want to start explaining every action she did, they would just have to get used to the fact that Ancients were never questioned and whose behaviour and actions were just shrugged off as being a part of what they were.

He nodded again, "Not the old stuff but the new stuff."

Vivian smiled, if he was a true Doctor Who follower she wouldn't have to say much. "Same principle as the inside of the Tardis." She said with a smile as she finished altering the internal proportions of the van and even what they were sitting on. Suddenly the inside of the van was transformed into a spacious room with enough room to cram a hundred people.

"What the fuck?" A women swore as she jumped to her feet, even that was enough to startle her more as she could now stand to her full height without bashing her head against the roof. "What the fuck." She repeated as she glanced around. She was not the only one completely shocked at the transformation of the inside of the van; it had gone from dark and smelling of gas to being an honest to god waiting room.

"Not a fan of the Doctor?" Vivian asked slightly amused by their reactions.

"You did this?" She demanded.

Vivian nodded. "Its quiet easy, even the triplets can do it and they aren't even five."

Electra chuckled and stretched her cramped muscles as Rhiannon sat on the carpeted floor and got ready to go to work.

Static crackled in their ears as their earwigs relayed important information, Five minutes from go, final checks. Everyone forgot about the changed dimensions of the van and checked their weapons and equipment making sure that everything was working and it's in place.

Other's checked maps and blueprints of the building. Priorities were simple, the first was disarm and arrest everyone who wasn't already in chains or caged, the second was to cease all documents and phones not that any calls were going to get out. The brass had decided that because of the way Electra had handled Mayhem that she would be the only person to deal with the people they were about to rescue. Psychiatrists who had watched Mayhem go from catatonic to functioning in such a short frame of time were shocked and wanted to see if it was Electra's actions that had brought Mayhem around or if it had something to do with the mind of a Were.

Electra closed her eyes and took a deep breath, calming herself down; her wolf was close to the surface, letting her senses expand even further. She opened an eye when she felt someone nudge her and growled a little in frustration as her glasses had slipped, she pushed on the bridge sliding them up further to block out the light. Vivian was before her and held a pair of space age wrap-a-rounds.

"Rhun went to the future looking for a solution to your problem, he came back with a version of these, and he then made them metamorphic. One pair of glasses for the rest of time. They will keep you in constant darkness, letting in only the amount of light you need to see and no more." Vivian handed them over as she spoke. "He'll make another pair for Mayhem."

Electra closed her eyes and pulled her sunglasses off, Vivian slid the new pair on, for a moment, they were loose on her face but quickly they contracted and formed to her to fit as if she was born wearing them, and unlikely to slip. She opened her eyes and glanced around. "Awesome." She could see even better with these on as they filtered out almost every bit of light leaving her in the perfect conditions for her to see.

One minute, move into positions. Everyone clipped their chinstraps for their helmets into place, Vivian and Electra were the only two not covered in weapons and body armour. Electra moved to where the sliding door should be, she would be using her strength to bust down the main door and let them in, other Were enforcers would be doing the same at the other entry points.

They couldn't feel the car move beneath their feet but they knew it would be moving into position.

Ten seconds.

Electra slid open the door and held on as the van came to a skidding stop.

Go, go, go, go, go!!!!