It took them awhile, Mick and Amaya, to get a fix on Merlyn's scent outside of the ship. In fact they were beginning to think that the Legion of Doom, as Nate had recently named them, might not even be here and they could be dealing with something else entirely. But then Mick remembered that Mary had said something about her father working in a factory, and if he really was one of the first infected than that might be a good place to look. After asking a few residents for directions the two Legend's found that the nearest factory was just outside of the town and it was known for manufacturing paper. Sure enough Merlyn's scent finally began getting stronger the closer that they got, but the fact that it was mixing with all the other smells of the factory was serving to create headaches for both of the Legends.
"Well at least we know it's them," Amaya grumbled as she and Mick poked around the machines of the factory, working their way towards the back of the building where the scent seemed to slowly grow stronger.
"You sound worried," Mick observed and in reply Amaya glanced up at the skylight of the building, taking note that she could no longer see the sun.
"Can you blame me?" She asked in a cautious voice, Mick looked up to before looking back at Amaya, this time in surprise.
"You're afraid you're going to go wolf?" He asked and she shrugged.
"I don't know," She admitted, she had mastered the art of controlling the animal within her years ago but for whatever reason the wolf was harder. Yes, it was something that she would physically turn into, so that's different. But the way it took over felt very much the same as the animals from her totem, yet the urge to give into it was so much stronger that it bordered on overbearing.
"So what if you do?" Mick asked, suddenly snapping her from her thoughts.
"Excuse me?" She questioned but he only shrugged.
"You brought yourself back from the wolf, and I ain't saying that didn't take strength because it damn sure did, I couldn't do it. But you're the one who told me not to deny the animal."
"This isn't the same animal, Mick." She reminded him, "We hurt people last night, or do you not remember?" She asked, the bite in her voice filled with venom and hate that he couldn't hold her completely responsible for.
She knew that he remembers the events of the previous night, and for the first time he began to consider that she might just hate him more for that than for biting her in the first place. Neither of them was in total control of their actions last night, but they were enough that he knew what he was doing when he bit her. He hadn't realized it earlier but he made her hurt people.
He was snapped from his thoughts, however, when a familiar sensation came over him. She felt it too; he knew that without asking. The world outside of the factory was growing dark and with every passing second the feral rage boiled up inside of each of them more and more violently. They both tried to fight it, even after his vision blurred into black and white Mick saw Amaya hunched over on all fours and very clearly in pain but still not transforming, still refusing to give in.
"Well, well, well." A familiar and yet strange voice mocked from behind him, but Mick couldn't think clearly enough to turn around.
But Amaya, all she had to do was look up. She began snarling when she did, drool pouring out her mouth and her sharpened teeth revealing themselves. It didn't take long for her body to morph and match the expression on her face. Mick followed her example and gave up his own fight against the wolf. After all if Amaya couldn't defeat it than what chance could he possibly have?
He never got an answer to his unasked question, not that he expected he would. He had just barely transformed when a numbing pain erupted in his shoulder, and then everything around him went black.
"We're running out of time guys!" Sara chastised as she hurried into the med bay where the team's two resident scientists, along with the historian hovering over their shoulders, were trying to create a working antidote to the wolf problem.
"We're almost done," Ray claimed while he swished some sort of concoction around in a vile. "Man I wish Mick and Amaya were here to test this."
Sara pretended not to hear his mumblings, she had tried contacting their two teammates to check their progress in finding Merlyn and received no answer on the comms, and so she could only assume that they had both transformed when the sun went down.
"Ok, it should be done." Ray's exclamation pulled Sara out of her thoughts.
"Great, now how are we supposed to spread it out all over town?" Jax questioned as he walked in and joined the group.
"Well last night we locked every wolf up in the asylum and, unlike those idiot nurses, we actually shut their doors and locked their chains. For now they should all still be there." Sara said as Ray, Stein, and Nate began loading the antidote into various tranquilizer darts.
"What if some of them are gone?" Jax asked, knowing that all it would take would be one surviving wolf and all of their effort would be down the drain.
"We've still got a dog whistle," Sara replied dismissively, her mind still half focused on the unknown fate of their currently missing friends.
"See?" Ray questioned with a grin, "Everything will be fine."
When Mick came to his senses he was able to come to one conclusion; he and Amaya were in deep trouble.
For starters his vision was in black and white, which meant that he was a wolf. He could see bars all around him; he was inside of a cage. That made him angry, or angrier anyway, as he was already pretty mad that someone had clearly gotten the jump on him and Amaya. Speaking of Amaya she was in the cage with him, not that he would've been able to recognize her by her appearance. She looked very much the way that he imagined he must, a canine body covered in thick, dark fur. She had a few shreds of her jumpsuit still clinging to her body here and there, just like he did in regards to his own clothes. Her eyes were narrowed dangerously he noticed, focused intently on something on the ground of their cage. Looking at it Mick couldn't identify it as anything special, it looked like a belt or something. He tried to get closer, but thought better of it when Amaya began growling in warning. Yet he tried again, so obviously Amaya had no choice but to take a snapping bite at his offending nose. He jumped back just before her teeth could make contact, starring at her in fear as she fixed him with the most fearsome and feral look he had ever seen. Her teeth bared and her nose scrunched, it was quite possible that she hadn't meant the bite as another warning and did in fact intend to kill him if he tried getting between her and that belt again.
"I wouldn't do that Mr. Rory," A voice, a very condescending voice, cut him out of his little bubble and made him realize that he and Amaya were not alone.
He looked up, the cage not being like Mary's and made of wood but instead resembling a larger scale version of the ones common in 2017, only to see the entirety of the Legion of Evil, or whatever the pretty boys had nicknamed them.
"You know how wild animals are," Merlyn began to say, "So protective and vicious over everything."
Mick growled at the man and his friends, barring his teeth before he began barking at them. How dare they do this to Amaya! He could deal with it; he's been treated like a dangerous animal all his life. But Amaya has control over that part of her. The Legion of Assholes had no right to take that away from her!
"You're the one who bit her," The annoyingly familiar sound of Snart's voice sounded from behind him and Mick wasted no time in turning his verbal attack onto the ghost.
"Testy creature," Thawne observed as Mick spun around and continued barking at the back wall of the cage.
"What is he barking at?" Darhk wondered aloud and the man who had recruited him here shrugged.
"Doesn't matter," Eobard insisted as he turned away from the cage, followed quickly by his two recruits. "This is two Legends down and five left to go." He said, "Now I'm going to take a little trip, best to see the big city while it's still standing. In the meantime I think that it might be a good idea for you boys to get ready for tonight." He said with a wicked grin that both Merlyn and Darhk soon matched, both knowing all to well that fun was still yet to really begin.
For those at the asylum the fun felt to be already in full swing. The five Legends had arrived just as the sun set and only managed to administer one or two doses of the antidote before all hell essentially broke loose. Firestorm was quick to bar the doors and remain in that position, sending a blast of fire in the direction of any oncoming wolves in order to keep them in the building.
"I had no idea you were so skilled in holding off multiple enemies Jefferson." Stein praised over the psychic link as Jax threw fireball after fireball and never missed a single shot, despite the fact that wolves were constantly coming from all sides and they were trying to avoid actually hitting as many as possible.
"I told you video games aren't a waste of my time!" The younger man shouted out loud, even though he was talking to a voice inside his head. Nevertheless Stein sighed at the proclamation, remembering how his other half had once claimed to have been a "video game king" during his elementary and middle school years.
Elsewhere in the asylum Sara had found herself suddenly wishing she had participated more in the horse-riding lessons during summer camp when she was a kid. Ray's darts were working just fine but with the wolves running wild in such close quarters it hadn't taken long for even the trained assassin to be knocked off her feet. However the manner in which she was knocked off her feet was via one particularly angry wolf running between her legs and lifting her off the ground. Sara, acting on instinct, grabbed onto its fur to keep from falling off and then jammed one of her darts into its flesh. As the creature began collapsing beneath her Sara grabbed onto the neck of another passing wolf and repeated the process. She continued doing this from one wolf to another and it wasn't long that between Ray, Nate, and herself every wolf had dropped and transformed back into their unconscious human forms.
"There, that wasn't so hard." Ray said as the entire team converged into the main lobby of the asylum.
"We're not done yet," Sara reminded the team, "We still have to find Mick and Amaya."
"Still no answer on their comms?" Jax questioned and as expected Sara shook her head.
"No and Gideon wasn't having luck tracking them," she huffed.
"They were tracking Merlyn, they could be anywhere by now." Nate offered, not that it was a very helpful reminder.
"And without an enhanced sense of smell, how are we supposed to track them?" Ray asked.
"Don't know," Sara said, "But considering Gideon can't even track them I'm assuming that means that Malcolm has them."
"Meaning that the chances of finding them before the earthquake is slim to none." Nate said and Sara nodded with a huff at the reminder that they're on a clock here, because nothing can ever be easy for this team.
"We better hurry then," she said and so with that order the team left the asylum.