Chapter 4 - Flexible Planning
Kate sat in her cage,drawing circles in the dirt with her paw. Lilly was practicing but Kate didn't feel like practicing tonight. She just stayed on her spot, with a sad face and sighing every few minutes.
"Kate, why aren't you practicing with your powers?" Lilly asked.
"I just don't feel like it, Lilly. These powers are more like a curse than a blessing, remember?" Kate said.
"Not to me; sure they're a curse now, but, if we practice, they can become a blessing." Lilly replied.
"What makes you so sure?" Kate asked her sister.
"I'm not sure at the moment, but I'm sure it could be, if we try hard enough." Lilly answered.
"Well, okay, you talked me into it, so what have you done so far with your new powers, Lilly?" Kate answered as she joined her little sister to master their new powers.
"I've learned to stretch my body to great lengths, watch." Replied Lilly as she stretched her entire body until she looked like a wolf with a giraffe's body.
"Whoa, Lilly, that's Incredible, you can do that?" Kate asked in a surprised tone.
"Yep, and you can too, now let's get started." Lilly replied as she retracted her entire body.
Meanwhile, with the search party..
"Marcel, how much farther to that faculty?" Asked Garth.
"Not much farther, Laddy."Marcel replied.
"It's getting dark. Shouldn't we rest and continue in the morning?" Cando asked. The wolves stopped and looked at him. He had a point. Marcel and Paddy perched on a tree branch. The search party was very close but Kate and Lilly would be in their cages until the day after tomorrow.
"Cando has a point. We need our strength." Garth agreed.
"Well, alright, we'll make camp here and continue in the mourning.
Meanwhile, back at the courtyard with Kate and Lilly...
"Whoa, Lilly, I've gotta admit, this is kinda fun. I mean I never thought that these powers would be so wonderful." Kate said, while she and Lilly were stretching their bodies like rubber bands.
"I told you. See, now lets try to blow up like balloons. I know it sounds silly, but it's kinda useful, once you get the hang of inflating and deflating. Now watch this" Lilly said as she blew up like a balloon.
"Okay Kate, try throwing that rock at me." Lilly asked her sister in a deep voice as Kate made her paw into a giant human hand and grabbed the rock and threw it at her sister's already inflated belly, which bounced off and fell on the ground.
"Wow, that was amazing, and you even managed to learn how to deflate after blowing up like a balloon." Said Kate as Lilly deflated back to her normal shape.
"Thanks. Now you try blowing up like a balloon." Said Lilly.
"Oh no. I couldn't. I'd probably look and feel silly." Said Kate, thinking about how she'd look as a balloon.
"So? What's wrong with being silly? I learned to accept being a silly rubber wolf with stretching abilities, and you should, too. Besides, what's so bad about being a silly rubber wolf who can do this? I've learned to love it and you should,too." Said Lilly, as she stretched her entire body and wrapped her arms around her sister.
"Okay. Then I'll do it. Now stand back." Kate ordered as Lilly stood back.
As Kate took a deep breath and held it in, she began blowing up like a balloon until she was bouncing like a beach ball.
"Help! Lilly, I can't stop bouncing! Make it stop!" Kate yelled in a deep voice sounding a lot like Lilly.
Lilly then blew herself up like a balloon to save her sister from constantly bouncing before she could hit the electric fence and get herself killed.
"Hang on, Kate! I'm coming! Just hang on!" Lilly yelled in a deep voice since every time she blows up like a balloon, her voice gets deeper like her lungs and vocal cords inflating like balloons too.
As Kate was bouncing all over the place, she landed on Lilly and came to a stop. Kate sighed in relief and thanked Lilly for saving her.
"Thanks Lilly. Now, why exactly did you want me to blow up like a balloon?" Kate asked her sister, still talking in a deep voice from her lungs and vocal cords being inflated.
"To show you the fun of being blown up like a balloon, like how you were bouncing around just now. You can also roll around and squash your enemies under your great weight." Lilly said, as she deflated back to her normal shape.
"Really? Let me try that." Kate then started rolling like a bowling ball untill she rolled over Lilly making her as flat as Kate was when Lilly rolled over Kate.
"Now that was kinda fun, Lilly, Lilly? LILLY! OH NO! WHAT HAVE I DONE? I'VE SQUASHED MY LITTLE SISTER!" Kate Yelled.
"Relax Kate. I'm alright. Just a little flat." Said Lilly as she was getting up but since her body was so paper thin that she could barely stand on two of her own four paws.
"Lilly! You're alright! But how? I thought I squashed you." Kate said as she deflated her whole body back to her normal shape.
"Nope! I'm fine, just a little flat." Lilly said, trying to walk with her paper thin legs.
"Hang on. Let me try to change you back." Kate said grabbing of Lilly's now paper thin paw and began blowing into it like a balloon.
Lilly began to inflate, growing bigger and bigger until she popped back to normal, Lilly was glad to back to normal.
"Thanks, Kate." Lilly thanked her sister for turning her back to normal.
Kate, once again, realized how Lilly's usually silly and childish nature had a purpose; in this case, helping the playful female to adapt to a weird situation, and enjoy it while learning to control it, thanks, in great part, to her very active, juvenile imagination.
Casey and Austin watched the two sisters from the sidelines, remembering the time when they were like that. They were so eager to learn every little aspect of their invisibility powers. But, they soon found out the hard way that it better to not learn everything all at once. After you learn everything and the humans finish collecting their data, well...
The two mates glanced at each other. They weren't supposed to be were they supposed to be? Dead. You become useless to the humans when you've mastered everything. But, they were still there, in this accursed prison of complete desolation...Casey sighed and stood up to go talk to the sisters. Austin put his paw over hers and shook his head. It was better if they were oblivious.
Meanwhile, back at Humphrey and the search party's campsite...
Marcel and Paddy lead the pack. Humphrey and Garth were in the lead. The other wolves followed, learning not to get in their way. They were focused and no one wanted to break their concentration. Marcel saw the building and told them to stop. Humphrey and Garth came to halt. They also fell over the edge of the bowl where the building nestled in. Marcel and Paddy landed besides the wolves and glanced into the courtyard. They couldn't see Kate or Lilly, and realized that they should be on the other side.
Paddy took out the floor plans out of Marcel's golf bag. They scanned it over. They were at the south side of the building. The animal cages were on the north side. The powerbox that powered the fences was on that side too. Humphrey sighed. How were they supposed to rescue Kate and Lilly? Marcel and Paddy flew to the courtyard to contact Kate and Lilly. The wolves patiently waited. They came back in a few minutes.
"Okay. Kate says they'll find a way to escape the cages if you shut down the fence. Give them a few minutes. It might take a while. They want to free some of their friends too." Paddy explained. Humphrey thought this through. If they were under the cover of darkness, this would be an easy mission.
Meanwhile, back at the animal cages...
"Kate, I've got an Idea of how we can get out, It's a long shot but it just might work." Lilly said as she began to execute her plan.
Lilly then tried to use her powers to slip through the bars of her cage and she managed to make herself like snake, slid through the bars, and morphed back into her normal form.
"Wow, why didn't we think of doing that when we first got our powers?" Kate asked as she was awestruck by how Lilly got out of her cage.
"Well. you never bothered to ask." Casey replied.
"UGH, let's just get out of her, I can't wait to put this behind us?" Kate said as she turned her paw into a key and opened Casey and Austin's cages.
"Come on, we got to get out of here." Kate said as they made their way to the exit.
Meanwhile, outside with Humphrey and the search party...
Humphrey was now taking the lead of the group. Usually, he would let Garth do this due to his brother in law's position in the pack; even if Humphrey was now the mate of an Alpha, and technically this made him an Alpha too, Garth still had the natural and training-achieved Alpha qualities that made him a better leader; however, in times of need, Humphrey had proved he was a very capable leader, even if usually just during an emergency. Besides, Garth knew his brother in-law was as worried about Kate as he was about Lily, and Humphrey was used to getting out of dangerous situations with everything against him, something Garth actually admired about the gray and black jokester.
Humphrey took the rescue team to the other side of the building, and immediately made all the wolves to disperse and look for possible entrances plus sniffing and hearing for any sign of Kate and/or Lily.
"Knowing Lily, she'll make quite a scandal at some point." Humphrey, half-joking, half-serious, said to Garth. "Even if we can't find them by scent, you can be sure she'll make enough noise to wake up a hibernating bear."
"Yes, one of those qualities of her that become useful at the less expected moments." Garth, serious as usual, nodded at Humphrey, while moving his ears in every direction, hopeful that Lily would make herself noticeable at any moment and Kate wouldn't be far from her.
Back with Kate and Lily...
All the lab animals were now out of their cages, but were still trapped inside the room. The scientists that designed the place, even if, obviously, did a poor job at making the cages (not realizing that a stretchy wolf could be creative enough to use his/her abilities to escape), were still smart enough to make the room almost completely escape-proof. The doors could only be opened by using electromagnetic cards, the walls were extremely resistant, and the air was coming from air ducts that, besides being too small, cooled the air so much that, even if an elastic being could turn fluid or thin enough to pass through it, the temperature would harden its body almost instantly.
"Well, unless we can come with another creative escape, we'll be stuck in here until one of the scientists get back and opens the door for us." Kate groaned.
"Or we can use Plan B." Lily smiled before taking a deep breath... and due to her elastic body, inflated herself almost as much as her balloon form yet still having normal paws and legs, at least until she morphed the paws into suction cups. Kate was puzzled at this until realizing Lily's muzzle was pointing at the door.
Kate moved everyone out of Lily's way right before the white wolf exhaled all the air she had taken, in a very violent, powerful way, strong enough to rival a medium-level hurricane; obviously, the suction cup trick was her way to keep herself on her place without getting pushed back by the force of her own attack. After a few seconds of getting hit by this wind, the door's hinges started creaking, and then, on a sudden, the whole door got blasted out of its frame. At the same moment, a loud alarm got heard.
"Good thinking, Lily, but let's go now! This alarm will definitely get the humans here!" Kate said to her sister, who was now completely deflated.
"Give me a moment... I'm breathless." Lilly gave Kate a cheesy grin before changing back to normal and joining her in the escape.
Outside, with the rescue team...
The wolves stood at attention when hearing the alarm.
"And that would be Lilly's work! I'd bet a year-supply of caribou flesh!" Garth said out loud.
"We have to get in, like, now!" Humphrey exclaimed before finally finding a window. The glass was quite thick, so they wouldn't be able to just break it with a sudden body impact. Humphrey then noticed a few rocks around and, using both his jaws and back paws, started throwing them at the window as hard as he could; his aim was terrible, but the idea was good, and soon Garth motioned Salty, Shakey, and Mooch to do as Humphrey, so now there were several wolves throwing rocks at the window, that started cracking under the persistent assault.
Inside the building...
Casey and Austin, turning themselves invisibles, made several surprise attacks at the scientists and security staff trying to restrain Kate and Lilly, the elastic females using various attacks to take down the humans that had, as Kate rightly guessed, heard the alarm sounding. Some guards had weapons that would probably take down even a shapeshifting, elastic being, but those were precisely the humans that Casey and Austin were targeting, and since everyone was just too focused on fighting the obvious threat (Kate and Lilly), no human could get the special visors that would allow detection of an invisible creature.
Kate, being less creative than Lilly, used mostly the attacks she already mastered, like turning into a ball to bounce against the humans, and enhanced versions of normal canine attacks, like making her head and jaws extremely big for intimidation and to deliver powerful bites (so hard, in fact, that she literally destroyed whatever tranquilizer gun the guards aimed at her), or throwing paw hits at a distance, with her limbs stretching and the paws increased in size to deliver a hard attack. Lilly, while using those attacks too, had some fun improvising moves and shape-changes, mostly by mimicking the tools she had seen the humans using; her front paws transformed into giant hammers was her favorite attack so far. The pair also morphed their heads into caribous', giant antlers included, to ram down the doors they found while searching for a way out.
After finding a room with no doors, Kate and Lilly used their torsos to trap the two humans inside in snake-like fashion while their invisible companions looked for another way out.
"I see a window... and it's already cracked. We can..." Casey didn't finish talking because a large male alpha wolf finished the job of destroying the window by smashing the already weakened glass with his head and body, entering the room, and followed closely by his companions.
"GARTH!" Lilly exclaimed in joy, quickly releasing the human she was holding and hitting him for a knock out before wrapping Garth in a loving embrace.
"HUMPHREY!" Kate reacted mostly the same way, except that, instead of knocking out the human when releasing him, she simply threw him away. Soon, she was embracing Humphrey the same way Lilly was doing with Garth... and it was at that moment when Garth and Humphrey realized the way their mates had handled the humans and how they were hugging them.
"Kate... I... I'm so happy to see you again, but... I've told you to be more flexible, but I think you exaggerated a bit." Humphrey, without stopping to smile at his mate, made an obvious yet valid observation.
"Yeah, Lilly, what happened to you two?" Garth asked his mate as well.
"A human injected me and Kate with a strange white liquid, gave us these clothing, and next thing we knew, Kate and I were like this. It's amazing, isn't it?" Lilly morphed back to her normal shape, mostly to show Garth that she was still the same despite the changes.
"Yes, these powers felt like a curse at first, but I'm starting to enjoy them." Kate confessed while morphing back to normal as well.
"Why would that human give you two these gifts?" Humphrey asked.
"Trust me, it wasn't out of the kindness his heart." Austin said to the newcomers, who finally noticed him and Casey. "We can explain to you all later. Now, we must leave before the humans capture us!"
Lilly, morphing her whole body until she was looking exactly like a giant muscle bound behemoth (something that didn't make her any less beautiful in Garth's eyes), lifted a large piece of equipment that was next to them, and used it to block the room's door, stopping any human from getting in. Then, when she morphed back to normal, the wolves dashed through the broken window before the humans could get them; fortunately, since the guards thought the thick crystal would be enough to hold any fugitive animal, and this room had no other doors, none thought about going outside to secure the perimeter, so the wolves were far away from the building before any human could see them.
The wolves didn't stop running until they were at least 10 miles away from the building, and they still kept sniffing the air and paying attention to any suspicious sound while still moving (at a slower pace) for around 2 more miles, just to play it safe. Finally, they decided to stop and take a break... even if Kate and Lilly weren't tired at all.
"I think we're safe now." Garth took some deep breaths. Being an alpha, his stamina was far superior to most wolves', but even he needed a rest after running for such a long time.
"Sooooo..." Humphrey, panting, looked at Kate, smiling at her yet still with an obvious concerned look. "It hurts... when you... do that... stretching thing?"
"It hurt a bit at first, but now it's more or less easy... like tensing your muscles a little more than usual." Kate shrugged. "Guess that's when those humans gave us this power, they also considered the strain it would cause to whatever animal using it, so added some stuff to the potion so we would have enough stamina to stand the changing, stretching and so."
"Yes, and it's funny." Lilly grinned before using her morphing powers to change her face into a duck's. "Quack, quack, I need to find a pond, quack."
"And I think you're having more fun than you should." Kate rolled her eyes at Lilly's display yet smiled. Humphrey and Garth sighed in relief and smiled as well, happy that whatever the humans did to their mates it wasn't painful at all, and it seemed to have a few advantages besides giving Lilly's imagination several new ways of expressing herself.
"And what about you guys?" Mooch turned at Casey and Austin. "The humans gave you super powers too?"
"Yes, they did... not as funny as theirs, of course," Casey grinned while pointing at the elastic females, who were now hugging their mates with their full bodies, "but our powers are quite useful when you need to be sneaky, stealthy or surprising."
Casey and Austin then turned themselves invisibles. The other wolves, minus Kate and Lilly (who obviously already knew about those powers) wide opened their eyes in surprise.
"T-they disappeared..." Mooch finally got his voice back.
"No, they didn't. I still can smell them and hear their breathing." Garth, getting back to his serious mood, sniffed the air and focused his hearing, so he was still capable of sensing the invisible wolves.
"Lilly said you were a great tracker." Austin's voice was heard before he and Casey turned visible again. "She wasn't exaggerating."
"So, Kate, Lilly, what else can you two do?" Humphrey asked both his mate and his sister-in-law.
"Well, as you could see with Lilly here, besides stretching our bodies, we can change our forms. Lilly is a bit more skilled than me in that aspect because she can morph into anything she imagines, and her imagination is more active than mine." Kate shrugged.
"Kate, Lilly's imagination is more active than all the forest's squirrels at once." Humphrey half-joked while Lilly, grinning, morphed her body into a squirrel's, yet still conserving her normal size.
"Thanks for giving me the idea, Humphrey! I have always wanted to do this." Lilly, making squirrel noises, dashed to the closest tree and climbed up to the tallest branches. "Hey, this is fun! Who said wolves can't climb trees?"
"Lilly, I know you're having a great time, but get down, please." Even if Garth loved to see Lilly happy, he also knew they needed to discuss this seriously.
"Okay, Garth." Lilly jumped from the branch and everyone gasped... until she made a gracious landing by getting two large membranes under her armpits that worked as parachutes. "Heh. Flying squirrel."
"Back to business... why the humans would give you these powers." Garth, glad that Lilly wasn't hurt (and secretly relieved that this power would protect her from the many crazy stunts she liked to perform), turned back at Casey and Austin, who seemed to know about humans a bit more than most wolves.
"Because, before trying their inventions on themselves, the humans like to experiment them on animals." Austin explained. "These powers we have are the result of several tests those humans rans on many animals before us; I have no idea how many creatures died or ended with some horrible side effect from the early versions of the potions."
Now Garth and Humphrey got concerned again.
"The chief scientist, Dr. Tabias, has been experimenting on animals for many years. He gives animals different powers, like Kate and Lilly's powers of Elasticity, and Casey's invisibility and mine." Austin continued explaining, getting sure that the other wolves could understand the terms he had learned from staying at the lab for so long by using words any animal could get. "The government... I mean, the alpha humans, those who are in charge of their packs or herds or whatever they have... gave him the assignment to create a medication that they can insert into humans and create super soldiers so they can defend their territories from hostile humans and even conquer those humans' territories as well. So far, it's worked on most animals, but it seems the humans' immune system... the part of an animal's body that defends you from most diseases... has resisted them and Dr. Tabias is still experimenting. Kate and Lilly are his latest project."
"And it's a good thing we escaped." Casey added. "When an experiment is particularly successful, Dr Tabias examines the animal's body and blood to find out why it worked so well and how he can use that on humans. And the only way to examine a body to full detail is, well, let's say nobody survives."
The other wolves were now both horrified and furious. As predators, they were used to kill other animals, but only for food or to defend their territory, own life or their families; killing any creature for selfish purposes or just because someone ordered it, without any respect for the victim's life, was one of the lowest actions any animal could perform.
"And to think the dogs actually serve humans willingly!" Humphrey growled, his usual good mood gone for the moment. The mere idea of any human killing his beloved mate and/or one of his best friends just to see how their powers worked (a power the same human granted in first place) made him furious enough to want to sink his fangs in those peoples' butts before breaking their necks.
"Another good reason to leave this place as soon as we can." Garth, furious as well, turned at the other wolves. "If the humans had invested so much time and resources into this project, and they're willing to do such low actions to achieve their goals, they'll not stop looking for us, both to capture 'their' super powered animals and to get new ones."
"Okay, let's go." Humphrey lead the way again, the group not stopping walking until they found a river.
"If we cross it, the humans will have a harder time finding our tracks." Garth suggested. "Time to swim."
"Wait, I think Lilly and I have a better way." Kate nodded at her sister before the alpha female took a deep breath and inflated herself like a large balloon. Lilly grinned at this, getting her sister's plan instantly.
"Ooooh... Kate, you're a genius." Lilly inflated as a balloon as well, with the other wolves, minus Casey and Austin, looking at them in awe; Garth and Humphrey were particularly impressed.
Kate bounced her way until she was almost touching the water, and Lilly placed herself behind her sister; then, the white wolf stopped bouncing and planted her paws on the ground, making her paws and claws big enough to sink them in the ground and keep herself immobile. Then, Lilly used her hurricane breath to send Kate across the river; soon, Kate was on the other side and Lilly was back to her normal shape after deflating completely.
Kate deflated herself and then wrapped her tail around a tree, stretching it until she was perfectly secured. Then, she mimicked Lilly's 'paw planting' trick while stretching the rest of her body over the water. The other side of the river, Lilly did exactly the same, and the sisters met at the middle of the river, joining their front paws and forming a very large bridge; since they were forming it with both their bodies, each wolf only needed to do half the effort so the bridge was safer and more resistant than it would be with just one of them forming it.
"Heh... Garth, our mates are geniuses." Humphrey commented to his brother-in-law before starting to walk over Lilly's body, the white wolf feeling no pain or annoyance from having another wolf walking over her; when Garth realized this, he followed after Humphrey, and soon the other wolves did as well. After a few moments, all the wolves were the other side of the river. Then, Lilly unleashed herself from both the tree and the ground, and allowed Kate to pull her, so soon both elastic females were reunited with the rest of the group.
"Excellent plan." Garth complimented the sisters. Now it would be even harder for the humans to find them; he knew they didn't have a good smell sense and relied mostly on their eyes, so it would be very hard for any man to find the exact spot where they crossed the river.
The wolves went back to walking, and this time, Kate and Lilly had another plan to cover their tracks; both sisters walked at the back of the group and elongated their tails while moving them back and forth, this action covering/erasing any of the tracks the wolves were leaving. Later, Garth found a small rocky hill and made the group to walk over it, since obviously they wouldn't leave tracks on solid stone.
The wolves kept using similar tricks during the whole journey, getting sure they weren't following the same path they walked when arriving at the laboratories to rescue Kate and Lilly. When they finally arrived home, the first wolf to receive them was Eve; Kate and Lilly were still at the back of the group, making sure no human had followed them (even if it was highly improbable by this point), so the pack didn't see them at first.
"Garth, Humphrey, what happened... where are Kate and Lilly?" Eve asked them, visibly concerned.
"Eve, remember when you told me and Garth, to protect Kate and Lilly, and you said that you didn't want them getting hurt?" Humphrey gave her a cheesy grin.
"And to have you both protect them with your lives" Eve replied.
"Really, I thought you didn't want them to be abducted by humans and get stretching abilities...well, anyways, brace yourself." Humphrey's words were a perfect cue for both Kate and Lilly to appear... with their necks stretched like giraffes so they could see over the trees.
Eve and the rest of the pack looked at this... and they all fainted.
"Mmm... they took it better than I thought." Humphrey shrugged.
"Wait for them to wake up, and then we talk again." Garth groaned. Explaining this would be as hard as the rescue.