THE CHRONICLES OF SILVERWOLF
PART ONE: IN THE AIR TONIGHT
By Regis A Welch
(Phil Collins singing to the song 'In The Air Tonight')
"I can feel it calling in the air tonight, Oh Lord."
The patter of the feet could be heard as the thuds echoed from rooftop to rooftop. The city was glowing with the illuminations of the nightlife, and the moon above was as round and full as an untouched apple pie.
"And I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord."
The thugs in the alley grabbed for the woman's purse, cutting the strap with a knife. She screamed in terror as they went for her dress, but stopped dead in their tracks at the sound of a snarl on the roof above.
"Can you feel it in the air tonight, Oh Lord. Oh Lord."
The silhouette was frighteningly real. In front of the pale moon stood the shape of the wolf man, who turned his head to the sky and let out a mournful howl.
"Well if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand."
The wolf leapt down from the rooftop, having nothing to fear of the fall as it silently crossed its arms in front of its face in preparation. The beast landed against one thug, the one nearest the woman, with enough force to knock him against the brick wall. The other thug thought he saw a spark of electricity go off.
"I've seen your face before my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am."
The thug against the wall was knocked out cold, and bled from the back of his skull. The second thug's eyes widened in terror as the beast turned to face him instead with a pair of glowing, electric blue eyes.
"Well I was there and I saw what you did; I saw it with my own two eyes."
The wolf began to move towards the thug, who ran.
"So you can wipe of that grin, I know where you been; it's all been a pack of lies."
As the thug ran for his life, he felt something blur past him. The thug choked on the truth: behind him the horror of where he'd been, and in front of him the horror of how he would be spending the last moments of his wasted life.
"And I can feel it calling in the air tonight, Oh Lord. I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord. I can feel it calling in the air tonight, Oh Lord. Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord, Oh Lord."
The wolf's eyes narrowed as he spoke in a voice that mingled an echo with a low threatening growl, "All aboard the Payback Express. You earn your ticket on this train and there's room for one more."
The thug screamed, his eyes wide with terror. He would find no mercy here.
THE CHRONICLES OF SILVERWOLF
Talbain walked out onto the porch and picked up his paper. The headline was unusual, even for this darkstalker-infested city:
TWO WEREWOLF KILLS IN DOWNTOWN METRO AREA
Talbain furrowed his eyebrows, groaning slightly in disgust, "This is logically the work of some unscrupulous publisher, but my nose says different." He threw the paper back down on the porch and walked inside.
"Felicia", Talbain called in his strong, gentle tone. He figured she would be in the kitchen because she loved to eat, but when she wasn't there he went looking about for her. If his senses were picking up a maniac at large, he wanted her safe.
The fighter finally found his feline lady by the phone upstairs. As soon as she saw him, she ran over to him and threw her arms around him, "Jon! It's awful!"
Talbain was stunned and held her at a distance so he could look her in the eyes and talk to her rationally, "What's awful? What happened Felicia?"
Felicia looked up at him with tears in her eyes, "It's Seth Carlyle. He was just fine when I saw him this morning and now he's in critical condition!"
Talbain's pupils dilated, "I'll get the car."
Carlyle had been into some things Talbain knew he should have steered clear of, but he was a genuinely okay guy aside from occasionally dealing small doses of pot to his druggie friends for an extra buck. He had never even upped prices or laced a sample. It was actually a running joke that he was the most honest criminal in the city.
Even if Carlyle had been a total jerk with the drug ring, he didn't deserve what Jon saw when he came in to visit. A bloody mess laid under a full body cast, barely clinging to life, waited for him and Felicia.
Felicia couldn't take it: she backed off and sat down in a chair, crying. She and Carlyle had been good friends growing up and this was a huge shock to her system.
Talbain approached, slowly reaching a hand out and nudging the figure on the hospital bed, "Hey there Seth. Can you still hear under all that?"
The figure twitched slightly, a whisper of a voice acknowledging the question, "Hey there furry and fearsome. Sure as hell glad it's you and not that other one."
"That other one?" Jon blinked, his tone inquiring.
"The werewolf who did this to me. He found me during selling hours and tore the place apart. I guess he's not much for Mary Jane. Think they hire darkstalkers on the police force now Jon?" Carlyle tried to laugh, but it quickly turned into a cough.
Talbain winced, "Easy there badass. I'll find out who it was, but what can you tell me about what you saw? I need something to go off of."
Carlyle sputtered under the cast. The nurse, who up to now had stood in back, stepped up, "I don't think he'll be able to give you any answers sir. He's lucky he can talk at all, and he was a lot worse than this when his sister found him."
Talbain snarled at the gutsy nurse, but Felicia put a hand on his shoulder, "She's right Jon. Don't push the patient, he's had it bad enough already."
Talbain lowered his head like a shamed old dog, then walked out on his own, not waiting for or even wanting for Felicia to follow after. He left the hospital in search of answers: in search of a darkstalker cruel enough to do this to Seth Carlyle, who had to already be one of the most pathetic guys on the planet.
He didn't have to look for long. As he wandered down an alley, following the strange, powerful scent, he found his quarry.
It sat at the back of the alley on a pile of garbage, panting from exhaustion. The figure, obviously a male, had long, windblown metallic silver hair and fair Caucasian skin. He wore a blue suit over his body appearing to be made of spandex and his arms and legs from the elbows and knees down appeared to actually be grafts made of an extremely tough metal substance.
Most disturbing of all were the eyes that looked up at Talbain as the mouth continued to pant heavily, a November fog on his breath.
Talbain stanced on the spot, his purple slacks and vest tightening with his muscles. He narrowed his eyes, panting angrily, "I know what you did."
The man, if that's what he was, slowly pulled himself to his feet, taking a mid-stance similar to Talbain's, "Don't claim to understand me because you don't: I have my own reasons for doing what I do and anyone I've killed or maimed has transgressed a direct law with full knowledge of what they were doing."
Talbain snarled, "Who put you in charge of enforcing the law! They have police for that! I think it's time someone put you in your place."
The man's eyes flashed, "Maybe it is, but you won't be the one to do it."
Talbain had heard enough. He felt the beast within taking over. The rage made his body break out in a cold sweat as his eyes took on the look of the wolf within. There would be no stopping it this time, and he didn't want to fight. As blue and white fur began to sprout all over him, his limbs and face contorted into the shape of the hybrid wolf man monster, his pants inching up his legs as his vest tore completely off his chest. A howl echoed from deep in his throat as he stood there, ready.
"You're not the only one who can pull that trick lycanthrope", the figure stated coldly, his foot taking a step back and planting against the ground as his eyes flashed once more, this time holding the shine. His body began to shake wildly as sparks of blue lightning began to spark off it. As the electric lightshow continued, his body almost bent over backwards as the silver fur rose from every pore of his skin, piercing through the strange spandex, which faded rather than tearing. The metallic limbs seemed to be unaffected except to move back in unison with the rest of his body's shape-shifting transformation. Finally, his face took on the look of the werewolf.
Talbain was no novice to strange occurrences, even among the darkstalkers, and he knew this one was not normal. However, he was too mad to care and he charged the creature headlong in a ferocious Beast Cannon, his body slamming against the opponent with the force of the flaming aura rocketing him forward.
To the Kung Fu Wolf Man's surprise, the silver wolf literally grabbed hold of him, a flurry of lightning sparks showering off him. The attack had taken them both through the brick wall of a building, but usually Talbain was able to spring free. Though battered, the opposing werewolf had dug into his arms deep with his metal claws.
Talbain yelped as he saw that it was about to get a whole lot worse. The wolf was still charging with electricity, and it predictably charged through the wires in the robotic arms like power lines and directly into Jon's bloodstream.
Talbain howled in pain, his echoing screams shattering windows in the bank, which was now evacuated while the two darkstalker menaces duked it out. The creature wasn't letting up and our hero realized to his horror this was intended to be a fight to the finish. Worse still, he had instigated the entire thing by rushing in like a fool.
There would be no talking. No reasoning was possible. This situation had been started by violence, and that is what would finish it. Talbain closed his eyes, focusing all latent energy, "DRAAAAAAAAAAAAGOOOOOOOOON CANNON!!!"
The massive swirling fiery blast sent the opponent through the roof: literally. The silver-haired lycanthrope lay unconscious against a large metal antenna, which he had snapped in half with the force of his descent from the blast when Talbain managed to climb his way to the rooftop. It was a miracle he hadn't impaled himself.
The silver-haired man opened his eyes, looking down to find himself tied against a large chimney by metal wires that had been bent around to hold him in place.
Talbain got up from where he sat by the hole they had made and walked over, "Good, you're awake. Now it's time we talked about a few things. For starters, why did you target and attack Seth Carlyle, and don't give me the lawbreaker rap."
The man closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, "He had a connection I needed."
Talbain narrowed his eyes, "And that meant you had to maim him?"
The man looked away and whispered, "He wasn't supposed to fight me."
Talbain slammed his hand against the pipe, "That's not good enough! Tell me the whole story, and speak up when you're talking so I can hear it loud and clear!"
The man's electric blue eyes darted to him, "First of all, you'll address me as Silverwolf, and I'll talk when I decide to talk so knock off the ultimatum, capiche?"
Talbain could have continued the vigilante act, but it was obvious this guy wasn't buying it so he really had nothing to gain. He softened his tone, "I need to know why my friend had to suffer like that. I need to know!"
Silverwolf looked him direct in the eyes, "Then unbind me. I swear on my honor as a fellow brother of the full moon that I will not leave until you know the truth. If you can't trust that, then what can you trust?"
The wires dropped to the ground with a clang. Silverwolf walked over to the edge of the roof and sat down, looking to the sunset as Talbain shifted back to human form.
The robotic-limbed werewolf closed his eyes, his voice solemn as he spoke, "Many years ago, there was a man named Johan Von Xietzel. This Austrian man was a scribe, but he wanted to be a poet. He dared to love the wrong woman, for her father was none other than Dr. Schill, a leading scientist at the Volta Organization, whose primary goal was to 'advance' evolution with their bizarre experimental mutants.
One such experiment had to do with electronically induced lycanthrope venom: werewolf variety. I remember it as clear as day:"
The two strong enforcers in black armor dragged the slender man into the room. He was tall and fair and handsome with long blonde hair. His clothing had been ripped off and he was naked to the world, defenseless against the 'good' doctor's orders.
Johan's mind raced as he thought back to Leila Mary Schill and the last thing she had said to him. She had told him they could not see each other anymore: that her father would kill him if he knew. Johan had gone personally to seek her hand in marriage from Dr. Joel Schill, and now he would learn the truth of his beloved's warning.
The enforcers lifted him up, despite his struggling, throwing him down into a tank of freezing blue liquid and closed the top over him, turning the wheel to seal it down.
A man with grayed hair, spectacles, and a large hooknose in a white lab coat walked down the stairs, "Gentlemen, careful! You'll damage the subject." The man was none other than the doctor himself, present for his twisted experiment.
Johan wanted to bang his fists against the glass, but he could not move. The liquid paralyzed him as he floated there in suspended animation, able to think and feel, but capable of little else.
Dr. Schill paced over the control panels, making sure all was in order with the aide's work. When finally satisfied, he bellowed, "Throw ze switch!"
And so it was done. Steam bellowed from the machine as electric volts coursed through the wires and into the liquid. As the sparks began to rock the body inside with thousands of volts, the tubes attached to the back animated mechanically and placed themselves directly on the tip of the of the wires, dripping a strange liquid into the sparks which steamed as it polluted the water, turning it a bright teal.
Johan was unable to move: unable even to scream as his body writhed involuntary as a reaction to the unimaginable torture. Being electrocuted and poisoned in the same dose is more than most bodies can take and it is a testament to the power of the human spirit that his technically fragile form held out.
"Test complete. Subject appears unconscious, Doctor."
"Drain the tank. He cannot be allowed to die like the others."
"Tank draining complete in 5, 4, 3, 2, complete."
"How is the patient?"
"Heartbeat stabilizing! Pulse normal! Brilliant!"
"Excellent. Remove test subject from Tank A"
Johan heard the sound of footsteps slowly approach over his own breathing.
"Subject is conscious! The eyes are opening!"
"Too soon!"
A howl rang out, followed by the sound of massive voltage coursing through the buildings' mechanical design, then the roar of flames. Johan limped out of the wreckage of the laboratory, burning behind him.
He looked down at his pathetically distorted body. To think, he had believed he would never get used to the newly attached arms and legs after the last 'operation' in experiment phase one. Now he was this thing: a silver-haired wolf man.
Johan looked to pale moon. The first full moon he could bring himself to hate, even with his beautiful poet's heart, "Johan no longer. There is only Silverwolf now."
Talbain faltered in voice, but finally stuttered a reply, "Awful."
"Isn't it?" Silverwolf looked up as the sunset came to a close, "The night is young. I have more hunting to do."
Talbain approached him, "Why do you hunt if you hate the wolf. Can you not control your inner beast? Don't tell me a creative mind like yours is that weak."
"I don't hunt for hunger, or even for sport", Silverwolf said low, turning to look at Talbain, his eyes glowing electric blue in the darkness, "I will find the ones who created the Volta Organization and I will not stop until there are no more who have to experience what I do. When the suffering ends, so does my vendetta."
Silverwolf turned to leave, but Talbain grabbed him by the shoulder, "Then you're in for a long hunt. Don't be foolish enough to go alone in the dark."
Silverwolf lowered his head, "Someday, but not tonight. We will meet again, Brother of the Full Moon. Keep yourself alive."
The werewolf howled with another transformation coming on, and leapt from the rooftop onto another, and another until he was out of sight.
Talbain stared after him, "And you'll address me as Jon."
DARKSTALKERS © 2004 CAPCOM ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
By Regis A Welch
(Phil Collins singing to the song 'In The Air Tonight')
"I can feel it calling in the air tonight, Oh Lord."
The patter of the feet could be heard as the thuds echoed from rooftop to rooftop. The city was glowing with the illuminations of the nightlife, and the moon above was as round and full as an untouched apple pie.
"And I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord."
The thugs in the alley grabbed for the woman's purse, cutting the strap with a knife. She screamed in terror as they went for her dress, but stopped dead in their tracks at the sound of a snarl on the roof above.
"Can you feel it in the air tonight, Oh Lord. Oh Lord."
The silhouette was frighteningly real. In front of the pale moon stood the shape of the wolf man, who turned his head to the sky and let out a mournful howl.
"Well if you told me you were drowning, I would not lend a hand."
The wolf leapt down from the rooftop, having nothing to fear of the fall as it silently crossed its arms in front of its face in preparation. The beast landed against one thug, the one nearest the woman, with enough force to knock him against the brick wall. The other thug thought he saw a spark of electricity go off.
"I've seen your face before my friend, but I don't know if you know who I am."
The thug against the wall was knocked out cold, and bled from the back of his skull. The second thug's eyes widened in terror as the beast turned to face him instead with a pair of glowing, electric blue eyes.
"Well I was there and I saw what you did; I saw it with my own two eyes."
The wolf began to move towards the thug, who ran.
"So you can wipe of that grin, I know where you been; it's all been a pack of lies."
As the thug ran for his life, he felt something blur past him. The thug choked on the truth: behind him the horror of where he'd been, and in front of him the horror of how he would be spending the last moments of his wasted life.
"And I can feel it calling in the air tonight, Oh Lord. I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord. I can feel it calling in the air tonight, Oh Lord. Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord, Oh Lord."
The wolf's eyes narrowed as he spoke in a voice that mingled an echo with a low threatening growl, "All aboard the Payback Express. You earn your ticket on this train and there's room for one more."
The thug screamed, his eyes wide with terror. He would find no mercy here.
THE CHRONICLES OF SILVERWOLF
Talbain walked out onto the porch and picked up his paper. The headline was unusual, even for this darkstalker-infested city:
TWO WEREWOLF KILLS IN DOWNTOWN METRO AREA
Talbain furrowed his eyebrows, groaning slightly in disgust, "This is logically the work of some unscrupulous publisher, but my nose says different." He threw the paper back down on the porch and walked inside.
"Felicia", Talbain called in his strong, gentle tone. He figured she would be in the kitchen because she loved to eat, but when she wasn't there he went looking about for her. If his senses were picking up a maniac at large, he wanted her safe.
The fighter finally found his feline lady by the phone upstairs. As soon as she saw him, she ran over to him and threw her arms around him, "Jon! It's awful!"
Talbain was stunned and held her at a distance so he could look her in the eyes and talk to her rationally, "What's awful? What happened Felicia?"
Felicia looked up at him with tears in her eyes, "It's Seth Carlyle. He was just fine when I saw him this morning and now he's in critical condition!"
Talbain's pupils dilated, "I'll get the car."
Carlyle had been into some things Talbain knew he should have steered clear of, but he was a genuinely okay guy aside from occasionally dealing small doses of pot to his druggie friends for an extra buck. He had never even upped prices or laced a sample. It was actually a running joke that he was the most honest criminal in the city.
Even if Carlyle had been a total jerk with the drug ring, he didn't deserve what Jon saw when he came in to visit. A bloody mess laid under a full body cast, barely clinging to life, waited for him and Felicia.
Felicia couldn't take it: she backed off and sat down in a chair, crying. She and Carlyle had been good friends growing up and this was a huge shock to her system.
Talbain approached, slowly reaching a hand out and nudging the figure on the hospital bed, "Hey there Seth. Can you still hear under all that?"
The figure twitched slightly, a whisper of a voice acknowledging the question, "Hey there furry and fearsome. Sure as hell glad it's you and not that other one."
"That other one?" Jon blinked, his tone inquiring.
"The werewolf who did this to me. He found me during selling hours and tore the place apart. I guess he's not much for Mary Jane. Think they hire darkstalkers on the police force now Jon?" Carlyle tried to laugh, but it quickly turned into a cough.
Talbain winced, "Easy there badass. I'll find out who it was, but what can you tell me about what you saw? I need something to go off of."
Carlyle sputtered under the cast. The nurse, who up to now had stood in back, stepped up, "I don't think he'll be able to give you any answers sir. He's lucky he can talk at all, and he was a lot worse than this when his sister found him."
Talbain snarled at the gutsy nurse, but Felicia put a hand on his shoulder, "She's right Jon. Don't push the patient, he's had it bad enough already."
Talbain lowered his head like a shamed old dog, then walked out on his own, not waiting for or even wanting for Felicia to follow after. He left the hospital in search of answers: in search of a darkstalker cruel enough to do this to Seth Carlyle, who had to already be one of the most pathetic guys on the planet.
He didn't have to look for long. As he wandered down an alley, following the strange, powerful scent, he found his quarry.
It sat at the back of the alley on a pile of garbage, panting from exhaustion. The figure, obviously a male, had long, windblown metallic silver hair and fair Caucasian skin. He wore a blue suit over his body appearing to be made of spandex and his arms and legs from the elbows and knees down appeared to actually be grafts made of an extremely tough metal substance.
Most disturbing of all were the eyes that looked up at Talbain as the mouth continued to pant heavily, a November fog on his breath.
Talbain stanced on the spot, his purple slacks and vest tightening with his muscles. He narrowed his eyes, panting angrily, "I know what you did."
The man, if that's what he was, slowly pulled himself to his feet, taking a mid-stance similar to Talbain's, "Don't claim to understand me because you don't: I have my own reasons for doing what I do and anyone I've killed or maimed has transgressed a direct law with full knowledge of what they were doing."
Talbain snarled, "Who put you in charge of enforcing the law! They have police for that! I think it's time someone put you in your place."
The man's eyes flashed, "Maybe it is, but you won't be the one to do it."
Talbain had heard enough. He felt the beast within taking over. The rage made his body break out in a cold sweat as his eyes took on the look of the wolf within. There would be no stopping it this time, and he didn't want to fight. As blue and white fur began to sprout all over him, his limbs and face contorted into the shape of the hybrid wolf man monster, his pants inching up his legs as his vest tore completely off his chest. A howl echoed from deep in his throat as he stood there, ready.
"You're not the only one who can pull that trick lycanthrope", the figure stated coldly, his foot taking a step back and planting against the ground as his eyes flashed once more, this time holding the shine. His body began to shake wildly as sparks of blue lightning began to spark off it. As the electric lightshow continued, his body almost bent over backwards as the silver fur rose from every pore of his skin, piercing through the strange spandex, which faded rather than tearing. The metallic limbs seemed to be unaffected except to move back in unison with the rest of his body's shape-shifting transformation. Finally, his face took on the look of the werewolf.
Talbain was no novice to strange occurrences, even among the darkstalkers, and he knew this one was not normal. However, he was too mad to care and he charged the creature headlong in a ferocious Beast Cannon, his body slamming against the opponent with the force of the flaming aura rocketing him forward.
To the Kung Fu Wolf Man's surprise, the silver wolf literally grabbed hold of him, a flurry of lightning sparks showering off him. The attack had taken them both through the brick wall of a building, but usually Talbain was able to spring free. Though battered, the opposing werewolf had dug into his arms deep with his metal claws.
Talbain yelped as he saw that it was about to get a whole lot worse. The wolf was still charging with electricity, and it predictably charged through the wires in the robotic arms like power lines and directly into Jon's bloodstream.
Talbain howled in pain, his echoing screams shattering windows in the bank, which was now evacuated while the two darkstalker menaces duked it out. The creature wasn't letting up and our hero realized to his horror this was intended to be a fight to the finish. Worse still, he had instigated the entire thing by rushing in like a fool.
There would be no talking. No reasoning was possible. This situation had been started by violence, and that is what would finish it. Talbain closed his eyes, focusing all latent energy, "DRAAAAAAAAAAAAGOOOOOOOOON CANNON!!!"
The massive swirling fiery blast sent the opponent through the roof: literally. The silver-haired lycanthrope lay unconscious against a large metal antenna, which he had snapped in half with the force of his descent from the blast when Talbain managed to climb his way to the rooftop. It was a miracle he hadn't impaled himself.
The silver-haired man opened his eyes, looking down to find himself tied against a large chimney by metal wires that had been bent around to hold him in place.
Talbain got up from where he sat by the hole they had made and walked over, "Good, you're awake. Now it's time we talked about a few things. For starters, why did you target and attack Seth Carlyle, and don't give me the lawbreaker rap."
The man closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, "He had a connection I needed."
Talbain narrowed his eyes, "And that meant you had to maim him?"
The man looked away and whispered, "He wasn't supposed to fight me."
Talbain slammed his hand against the pipe, "That's not good enough! Tell me the whole story, and speak up when you're talking so I can hear it loud and clear!"
The man's electric blue eyes darted to him, "First of all, you'll address me as Silverwolf, and I'll talk when I decide to talk so knock off the ultimatum, capiche?"
Talbain could have continued the vigilante act, but it was obvious this guy wasn't buying it so he really had nothing to gain. He softened his tone, "I need to know why my friend had to suffer like that. I need to know!"
Silverwolf looked him direct in the eyes, "Then unbind me. I swear on my honor as a fellow brother of the full moon that I will not leave until you know the truth. If you can't trust that, then what can you trust?"
The wires dropped to the ground with a clang. Silverwolf walked over to the edge of the roof and sat down, looking to the sunset as Talbain shifted back to human form.
The robotic-limbed werewolf closed his eyes, his voice solemn as he spoke, "Many years ago, there was a man named Johan Von Xietzel. This Austrian man was a scribe, but he wanted to be a poet. He dared to love the wrong woman, for her father was none other than Dr. Schill, a leading scientist at the Volta Organization, whose primary goal was to 'advance' evolution with their bizarre experimental mutants.
One such experiment had to do with electronically induced lycanthrope venom: werewolf variety. I remember it as clear as day:"
The two strong enforcers in black armor dragged the slender man into the room. He was tall and fair and handsome with long blonde hair. His clothing had been ripped off and he was naked to the world, defenseless against the 'good' doctor's orders.
Johan's mind raced as he thought back to Leila Mary Schill and the last thing she had said to him. She had told him they could not see each other anymore: that her father would kill him if he knew. Johan had gone personally to seek her hand in marriage from Dr. Joel Schill, and now he would learn the truth of his beloved's warning.
The enforcers lifted him up, despite his struggling, throwing him down into a tank of freezing blue liquid and closed the top over him, turning the wheel to seal it down.
A man with grayed hair, spectacles, and a large hooknose in a white lab coat walked down the stairs, "Gentlemen, careful! You'll damage the subject." The man was none other than the doctor himself, present for his twisted experiment.
Johan wanted to bang his fists against the glass, but he could not move. The liquid paralyzed him as he floated there in suspended animation, able to think and feel, but capable of little else.
Dr. Schill paced over the control panels, making sure all was in order with the aide's work. When finally satisfied, he bellowed, "Throw ze switch!"
And so it was done. Steam bellowed from the machine as electric volts coursed through the wires and into the liquid. As the sparks began to rock the body inside with thousands of volts, the tubes attached to the back animated mechanically and placed themselves directly on the tip of the of the wires, dripping a strange liquid into the sparks which steamed as it polluted the water, turning it a bright teal.
Johan was unable to move: unable even to scream as his body writhed involuntary as a reaction to the unimaginable torture. Being electrocuted and poisoned in the same dose is more than most bodies can take and it is a testament to the power of the human spirit that his technically fragile form held out.
"Test complete. Subject appears unconscious, Doctor."
"Drain the tank. He cannot be allowed to die like the others."
"Tank draining complete in 5, 4, 3, 2, complete."
"How is the patient?"
"Heartbeat stabilizing! Pulse normal! Brilliant!"
"Excellent. Remove test subject from Tank A"
Johan heard the sound of footsteps slowly approach over his own breathing.
"Subject is conscious! The eyes are opening!"
"Too soon!"
A howl rang out, followed by the sound of massive voltage coursing through the buildings' mechanical design, then the roar of flames. Johan limped out of the wreckage of the laboratory, burning behind him.
He looked down at his pathetically distorted body. To think, he had believed he would never get used to the newly attached arms and legs after the last 'operation' in experiment phase one. Now he was this thing: a silver-haired wolf man.
Johan looked to pale moon. The first full moon he could bring himself to hate, even with his beautiful poet's heart, "Johan no longer. There is only Silverwolf now."
Talbain faltered in voice, but finally stuttered a reply, "Awful."
"Isn't it?" Silverwolf looked up as the sunset came to a close, "The night is young. I have more hunting to do."
Talbain approached him, "Why do you hunt if you hate the wolf. Can you not control your inner beast? Don't tell me a creative mind like yours is that weak."
"I don't hunt for hunger, or even for sport", Silverwolf said low, turning to look at Talbain, his eyes glowing electric blue in the darkness, "I will find the ones who created the Volta Organization and I will not stop until there are no more who have to experience what I do. When the suffering ends, so does my vendetta."
Silverwolf turned to leave, but Talbain grabbed him by the shoulder, "Then you're in for a long hunt. Don't be foolish enough to go alone in the dark."
Silverwolf lowered his head, "Someday, but not tonight. We will meet again, Brother of the Full Moon. Keep yourself alive."
The werewolf howled with another transformation coming on, and leapt from the rooftop onto another, and another until he was out of sight.
Talbain stared after him, "And you'll address me as Jon."
DARKSTALKERS © 2004 CAPCOM ALL RIGHTS RESERVED