Disclaimer: Marvel's too wussy to write kick-butt stuff like this!
A/N: This story's on FIYYAH! Thank you all to who have favved, subscribed, and above all, REVIEWED!
When Kurt finally emerged from unconsciousness, he crawled over to the thing in the corner of his cage that he had been nibbling on through his "nap."
"Ugh, Key, wie lang hab' ich schlafen bin?" How long have I been sleeping? Kurt groaned, reaching through the plywood and feeling Key's fur.
"Velleicht drei oder vier Tagen," About three or four days, Key answered, shifting so she gripped Kurt's hand with her own.
"Oh Gott, ich glaube ich war in eine Kampf," Oh God, I think I was in a fight, Kurt moaned, taking inventory of his body and licking the sores on his wrists from the spurs.
"Es werde besser sein." It'll get better. Key reassured him.
XXX
Two months later
It was a dark night, darker than normal because of a new moon and a thick cloud cover. Surprisingly though, many people were strolling the streets. They walked down Delfin Platz, the wide, beautiful street with all the nice shops, ignoring the warehouse at the corner of Delfin and Ernst-Schwendler. A few years before, a street artist had painted an expansive mural stretching down two sides of the warehouse, of rolling fields and woods with big-eyed does and sleek bobcats hiding in the trees. It wasn't dilapidated, but it wasn't bustling either, so nobody gave a second thought to the warehouse.
However, on this dark night as people enjoyed an evening walk, the streetlamp by the warehouse went out, plunging the mural and the person under it into darkness. He stood, looking up at the faintly glowing wick of the bulb and wondered why it had gone out.
Then he heard distant screeching from the warehouse behind him.
"Was ist los?" What's up? He muttered to himself, going around the corner to look for an entrance to the warehouse. He was a German animal cop, and if there were animals fighting the way the screeching indicated, he should check it out.
He found bingo when he had walked to the end of the mural on Ernst-Schwendler. A tall, wrought-iron gate barred the alley in between the warehouse and the neighboring building. Pushing on it experimentally, he found it unlocked. He pulled his gun and held it muzzle-down, with the safety on. The man crept around the side of the warehouse and found an entrance into the warehouse, a steel door, padlocked, but a sliver of yellow light shone underneath it, onto his shoes.
He kept his gun out, unclicked the safety, as he heard the stirring of many bodies on the other side of the door. The screeches and yowls, sounding vaguely feline, were more distant and muted here, but not unhearable. Raising a fist, he knocked on the door. He waited a moment, then heard somebody on the other side.
"Wer sind Sie? Warum sind Sie hier?" Who are you? Why are you here? A man asked from the other side of the door. Thinking fast, the animal cop decided to go undercover, get in, scope it out, report it, and get back undercover.
"Ich bin hier für ein Job. Soll ich hier kommen für der Job?" I'm here for a job. Do I come here for the job? He asked, not putting his gun away.
The man on the other side of the door sighed. "Wissen Sie, was dieser Job ist?" Do you know what this job is?
"Ja. Bitte, ich will ein Job. Ich habe mit Tiere bevor arbeiten—ich wisse Tieremedizin." Yes. Please, I want a job. I've worked with animals before—I know animal medicine. The cop said, not lying completely, but leading the man on the other side of the door on.
There was a moment of silence. "Okay. Warte ein Moment." Okay. Wait a minute.
A minute or so later, a man approached the animal cop from the dark end of the alley, pistol in hand. "Name?" he demanded.
"Wengermann." The animal cop replied, using a familiar alias of his.
"Gut. Komm mit." Good. C'mon. The man said, keeping his pistol out, so Wengermann did the same.
The man led Wengermann into the warehouse, and the first thing he noticed was the overpowering stench of waste and sweat. It was heavy and cloying and made his eyes water. He coughed quietly, and the man looked back with a wicked smile, telling him he'd get used to it. They went past rows and rows of cages, filled with human-sized creatures: blue fur, three fingers, two toes, spaded tails, gold pupilless eyes, pointed ears and sharp yellowing fangs. The things Wengermann noticed the most were the shiny pale blue scars all over the creatures' bodies, marks from teeth and slashes from claws or something like that.
It horrified Wengermann to see the conditions of these almost-human creatures. He asked the man, who replied that these were half-demons, their fathers were humans and their mothers were demons. He walked up to one cage and hit the bars a few times with the butt of his gun. Wengermann came up and saw a young half-demon with its back towards them, healing scars on its back, eyes fierce but scared at the same time.
The man introduced himself as Bleichen, and said that this little demon was one of his sons. He was a good fighter—in his first go, he'd won and figured out how to use spurs and teleportation. Bleichen stuck his fingers through the bars, and the half-demon looked curiously towards them, but didn't make a move towards them. He growled, and from the cage next to him, an older, heavily scarred female growled.
"Sprechen sie?" Are they talking? Wengermann asked.
"Nein, sie sind zu dumm." No, they're too stupid. Bleichen replied, chuckling slightly. Wengermann became distressed as he heard a slight whisper that Bleichen didn't.
" . . . nicht nett . . ." . . . not nice . . . the young half-demon murmured, then Wengermann realized the demons could not easily be understood because their voices were so feral and growling, but if you listened closely, you would hear.
Suddenly, Wengermann became aware of all the demons talking to each other. They must have picked up German from the men—most likely their fathers—and spoke it to each other. It appeared that the young demon in front of them had some sort of relation to the female next to him, because as Bleichen moved off, Wengermann dawdled and heard the demons start conversing.
"Hey, es ist okay, ich bin mit die Tierepolizei. Meine Name ist Wengermann. Was ist sein?" Hey, it's okay, I'm with the animal cops. My name is Wengermann. What's yours? Wengermann asked quickly. The half-demon looked surprised, but answered respectfully.
"Ich heisse Kurt. Sie ist Key." I'm Kurt. She's Key. Kurt gestured to the female, Key. Wengermann nodded and left to follow Bleichen. As Wengermann left, Kurt felt hot tears prick his eyes. He started crying with happiness. They'd be rescued!
XXX
Bleichen led Wengermann into the office and had him fill out a confidentiality agreement, then let Wengermann go on the premise he had to collect his things and come back within two hours.
As soon as Wengermann was out in the alley, out of sight of Bleichen or whoever else may have been watching, he ran through the gate, walked back onto Delfin Platz, and hailed a taxi to take him to the animal cop precinct. He was going to save those half-demons and blow the operation out of the water.
XXX
[From now on assume all talking is in German]
"Sir, I must respectfully disagree! These beings can reason and speak like humans, and they are being fought against each other to the death, kept in cages like animals! I spoke to a young one, he said his name was Kurt! He has a sense of self, and it's highly immoral to keep people in cages. We have to save them. It's no different from any bird, dog, or horse fighting rings we've stopped." Wengermann protested to his supervisor.
"Look, Haupmacher, I can't do anything about this. You said so yourself that they reason like human beings. This is clearly a case for social services." His supervisor said, shaking his head sadly.
"Please, sir, let me go undercover and gather evidence. Then we can take the case to social services." Wengermann—or his real name, Haupmacher—offered a compromise. His supervisor sighed.
"Alright, Haupmacher. You're undercover as Wengermann, you said, so go get your camera and things. When do they expect you back?"
"In an hour and a half."
"Good. Take a laptop and start building a case that social services will be able to work with. Now go." The supervisor dismissed Wengermann, who leapt to his preparations.
XXX
"Key, do you think the animal cop, Wengermann, will come and save us?" Kurt asked.
"Yes, I suppose so, Kurt. Though, if he does get us out of here, where will we go? Have you thought about that?" Key countered.
"I'll go back to my real momma!" Kurt said.
"Kurt . . . your mother probably has another child by now, or another two perhaps. In here, they breed us like animals, because that's all we are to them. They don't know we can think and talk." Key said, trying for gentleness.
"Then I guess I'll stay with you, or Wengermann will find a place to let us live." Kurt said.
"For such a young boy, you think many years beyond your age." Key said, then fell silent.
"I just want to get out."
I just have to break the chap here for extra dramatics and so the next chap is clean and makes sense. I've written a bunch, being stuck in a car for nine hours, and want to dedicate this chap to iNsOmNiAc-ReAdEr 2014 (sorry if I got the capitalization wrong): thank you for motivating me to get off my feet and write this, though I didn't finish it by the time you got back from Walmart.
Cheers and happy belated Thanksgiving from Iris Musicia