A loud cry of pain had Sara, Ray, and Nate all whirling around only to find themselves staring at the horrifying sight of Mick down on one knee before falling even more forward to brace his weight on his hands, the source of his suffering being a brown furred wolf with it's jaw clamped around his leg.
For a moment the three of them just stood there frozen in the hallway, almost oblivious to the sounds of screams and howls as more and more wild dogs spilled into the corridor with each passing second. Their eyes were locked onto Mick to see what he would do, to see if he would soon follow along with the canines or remain a human. To their horror he did exactly as they had expected, and his body began morphing, his green eyes brightening until they were almost yellow. He used his newfound claws to tear away at his clothes, which were already being replaced by thick black fur. The transformation didn't take long, only mere seconds in fact, but to the three watching it felt like an eternity. Before they knew it their friend, or former friend maybe, was snarling at them with a feral hunger.
"Go! Go!" Nate was the first to snap out if the haze, the other two bolting off at his command. The three of them tore down the stairwell, the howls and barks of wolves filling every direction. By some miracle they were able to make it to the outside of the building without any more of them getting bitten, and that was where they found Firestorm already merged and Amaya looking as though they had all been just two seconds away from charging into the institution.
"Where's Rory?" Jax demanded to know.
"He's uh-" Ray began but he was interrupted by a pack of at least a dozen wolves bursting from the doors of the asylum and flying down the dirt road towards the town, one of them noticeably still wearing the shredded remains of fireman's jacket. "There," the genius finished, pointing vaguely to the pack of runaway dogs.
Jax looked over at Ray with an incredulous expression, but Amaya on the other hand growled as she touched her totem and the ghostly outline of a cheetah came over her body before she took off in a sprint so fast that it possibly could've even made Barry Allen jealous.
For a second they all just watched Amaya go, even those who had been gambling on her feelings for Mick slightly stunned by how quick she was to chase him down.
"Grey wants to know if you guys figured out how to stop these things?" Jax finally addressed the group.
"Not yet but we might have found a lead on where it started, but for now we need to focus on keeping it from getting worse." Sara replied,
"One problem," Ray pointed out, "I don't think any of us is an expert on werewolves!" He practically shouted, taking note that while their team may be more than well equipped to handle science based aberrations the supernatural is just a little bit out of their wheelhouse, despite having a once dead assassin for a team leader.
"I'm no expert but I know that silver is their weakness. It's like kryptonite. Show it to them and they'll back off, cut them with it and they'll go down." Jax explained and although the others did look skeptical, or at least surprised, they didn't really have any better options at the moment.
Meanwhile Amaya, powered by the spirit of the cheetah, was still racing down the dirt road and had just managed to catch up with the city-bound wolves. It didn't take her long to determine which one was Mick, thanks to some shredded pieces of his familiar clothes still being stuck to his body. She surged forward and tackled him straight out of the pack, the other wolves not even giving the situation a second glance because while wolves may be pack animals by nature these weren't exactly typical wolves they were dealing with. Besides, Mick may look like them but he is not one of them. He's a stranger to them, and no way were these wolves going to suddenly reel around to help a stranger to their pack.
"Snap out of it Mick!" Amaya pleaded through gritted teeth as she struggled to pin him under her while avoiding his flailing claws and snapping jaw. "Mick, you need to control the animal!" She continued, still struggling to keep him down. It wasn't so much his strength that gave him an advantage against her, strength she could combat. But it was how vastly different his body now was in comparison to hers, she didn't want to hurt him too severely with one wrong move on either of their parts. "Mick!" She sneered when he took another attempted bite at her arm only to miss by less than an inch. "I need you to-AH!" She cut herself off with a gasp, unable to finish her sentence once she felt Mick's sharp teeth digging deeply into her shoulder.
"So what exactly is the plan here?" Nate asked after Amaya ran off after Mick and left the rest of them standing outside of the asylum. They had started after them but Sara called them back, and instead instructed them to go back into the asylum and grab as much silver as they could find.
Not that there was much silver to be found inside of an insane asylum, as the most they could find was a drawer of silver cutlery and a few old candlesticks.
"We lure all the wolves here and then use the silver to put them all to sleep, simple." Sara replied with a bright smile as though to say she knew this entire thing was ridiculous.
"Great, but how are we going to lure every werewolf in town here?" Ray questioned and in response Sara pulled a small, circle shaped device from the waistband of her dress.
"It's the sonic device I used back in my vigilante days," she explained, knowing that while none of her teammates would know what object was just from looking at it, Nate and Ray probably had an idea as to what she was talking about. "It works on a couple different frequencies, including one that can only be heard by dogs." She continued before pressing a small button on the edge of the device and it lit up with a blue glow.
"So how long should it take for every wolf in town to get here?" Jax questioned. He and Stein had separated for the time being but were sure to keep a close proximity to each other for when the battle began.
"Well it might vary depending on how far they are, but I wouldn't bet too long." Sara replied and as if on cue the very faint sound of barking began sounding out from in the distance, and it was growing stronger by the second.
"Here they come," Sara warned when the first few wolves appeared at the horizon line. "Get ready."
At her orders Stein and Jax clasped their hands together and merged into Firestorm, taking to the sky but other than that waiting for further instruction to attack.
The wolves grew closer, and more began coming from other directions. Sara, Ray, and Nate stood in a small circle with their backs to each other while their other two teammates, or technically one, flew above their heads. When the wolves were near enough the fierce battle began. Sara, who thankfully had decided to bring her silver dagger along on this mission, was by far making the most progress. Every wolf she cut practically dropped in a dead faint. She didn't cut them anywhere near deep enough to actually cause them any harm worse than a scar, they are still people during the daylight after all, but just enough to weaken them into unconsciousness. Ray was next in the line of progress, using two candlesticks to defend himself. He was hitting the wolves with them and while they were rarely knocked completely unconscious it was enough to keep them down. Nate helped both of his grounded teammates by using his powers to frighten the wolves, as they believed the shiny surface of his skin to be silver and it had them turning tale and running, consequently right into either a candlestick or a dagger. Firestorm controlled all the chaos from above, sending down a fireball every time a wolf began to get away.
Overall the fight, while long, went off without a hitch and the five Legends were able to return each and every wolf into the asylum, as well as admit a few new ones. The only problem was that, as far as they were concerned, none of those new wolves included Mick. They checked three times but he just wasn't there, and with no sight of Amaya either they were beginning to assume she had lost her fight against him.
That is, until they returned to the Waverider and she showed up ten minutes later with Mick's wolf body unconsciously slung across her shoulders. She was beat up badly, scratches and bruises littering most of the visible skin on her body. But the most noteworthy injury on her was the rather pronounced bite mark where her neck met her shoulder.
"Where should I put him?" She asked, knowing that the med bay chairs weren't exactly designed for sleeping dogs. But no one answered her; instead they were all simply staring at her as though she were a ghost. "What?"
"Your shoulder…" Stein trailed off and Amaya glanced at the wound as though she were just now noticing it.
"Oh yeah," she acknowledged with a grimace but other than that said nothing.
"How come you're not… you know?" Ray asked and Amaya chuckled.
"A wolf?" She supplied, "When I use my totem I'm in control, not the beast. I know how to keep the wolf at bay." She explained and it was another beat or two of silence as the team processed that.
"What are the chances he's going to sleep until morning?" Sara finally asked and Amaya mulled over the question.
"Doubtful," she replied and Sara nodded.
"Leave him in his room, Ray go get a sedative from the med bay and give it to him." Sara instructed and with simultaneous nods Amaya and Ray each set off on their own assignment, leaving Sara to turn to address the rest of the team. "The rest of us need to figure out what's going on here and where in the hell it came from."
"Yeah and we better do it fast, because we only have one day left before San Francisco is a pile of rubble and this place is overrun with refugees." Nate put in and when he did one could almost see the light bulb go off over Stein's head.
"Refugees," he repeated the word as though it were the key to solving all the mysteries of the universe. "Once the earthquake hits there will be refugees all over Northern California."
"And I doubt it'll take long for that to spread." Jax said, realizing that if refugees spread here and then to other places the wolf disease would go with them.
"Wait so the play here is to take out California?" Sara asked, "Why?"
"Well I think that it's probably safe to assume that there is a good chance these werewolves were brought here by someone from the future, in which case, who knows what their endgame might be?" Stein questioned,
"Or it's another moron who crashed here with a disease," Jax theorized but Sara shook her head.
"There's no trace of a time ship anywhere. Whoever's behind this brought it here intentionally, and I'd be willing to bet that we know who that is." Sara said, finally bringing up the group that nobody wanted to name. Merlyn, Darhk, and The Speedster.
"Yeah," Jax finally agreed, "Can't really think of too many people crazy enough to use werewolves, who would also find a way to create them."
"But isn't Malcolm Merlyn from California, why would he want to destroy it?" Stein asked but Sara simply huffed at the question.
"Malcolm once brainwashed his daughter so that she would murder one of her friends, destroying his home before he's even born wouldn't be the craziest thing that he's done." Sara said and that had Nate looking at her with a curious expression.
"Nevertheless," Stein said, "We mustn't jump to any conclusions about our enemies."
"Stein's right," Sara agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. "We need to focus on the problem at hand."
"Which is that half of a town, plus two of our teammates, have all turned into werewolves." Nate commented,
"At least Amaya can control it." Jax said and the others nodded.
"Which might make her our best chance at taking them out," Sara theorized,
"How do you figure?" Nate questioned,
"Well," Sara began with a shrug, "I'm assuming the wolves can understand each other, and with Amaya able to control the wolf in her maybe she can get them to listen to her at least enough to stop attacking people." She explained and while it was clear that the logic was questionable it was also apparent that it wasn't totally flawed.
Meanwhile Amaya had laid Mick out on his bed, after removing all the clutter that had been piled on top of it of course. She knew that he preferred to sleep in his chair, or at least she could guess as much considering that's where he usually was every time she paid him a visit and the bed looked like it had never been used for anything other than the home for a pile of crap. But his chair, even when reclined to its fullest extent, was awkward for his canine body unless she wanted to attempt curling him up, which she did not. So if he had any objections when he woke up to all of his clutter having been shoved to the floor he could deal with it then. Currently she was sitting at the foot of his bed, her slim fingers gently stroking through his matted black fur. She was keeping a close eye at the horizon outside of his window, watching for the sun and waiting for him to come back to her. When she finally determined that it would only be a matter of minutes before he transformed again she draped a blanket over his body, knowing that his clothes had been torn, shredded, and discarded hours ago.
She felt the transformation before she saw it, and not only in Mick. Yes she could feel his body beginning to tremble and shift beneath her fingers, and yes she was able to feel his fur thinning and receding away. But she hardly registered any of that. What she mostly paid attention to was the sudden feeling of a weight being lifted from her own chest. She felt as though she could finally breathe for the first time in hours. But yet she could still feel it, this nagging feeling still tugging at the corners of her subconscious. She wasn't free, not really, not yet.
It was another hour after the transformation occurred that Mick finally began to stir, Ray's sedative finally wearing off. When he first awoke he looked around the room, surveying his surroundings in a way that he had learned from Leonard. Once he determined that he was in his own quarters, and oddly enough on his bed, he glanced up to see what was the source of the presence that he could just feel down by his feet. He'd like to say that he was surprised to find Amaya sitting there, but for some reason he wasn't. He then looked down at himself only to find that everything from his waist downwards was covered by one of his blankets.
He laid his head back down, a look of complete and utter defeat on his face. Amaya respected that, and gave him a moment to process everything that had happened during the night. She knew he remembered, and he knew that the same could be said for her.
But she didn't know. She didn't know why he was bitten, why he was caught off guard so easily. She didn't know anything about him, she likes to think she does but she doesn't. He didn't mean to bite her, but he was just so angry. He was so tired of hearing her tell him that he could control the animal inside him as if it were the easiest thing in the world. It isn't. Not for him. He's still so angry, still so freaking annoyed that she doesn't see it isn't for him. So although they shouldn't the memories of last night give him a sick sense of joy. He remembers what happened, and so does she.
"Did you tell them?" He finally asked her, shifting his position to stare up at her. "How you beat me?" He decided it would be best to clarify, to not give her an out to dodge the question.
She looked away from him when he asked, her face answering for her. She didn't. She didn't tell the team the reason it took her hours to subdue him. That she lost control.