"The odds are so low of it happening that I think of it like those civil war bullets that hit each other in midair. Something that theoretically can happen but, come on, the odds…" – Kurt talking about the rift run to Penny

"They are pushing on our right!" Val yelled into the radio as she pivoted to fire on the ant-apes that had begun surging over the hill.

Kurt shifted his fire over to support her while Kristi was mowing down her side with short bursts. A few longer ones occasionally sounded as she got a couple lined up, but for the most part it was only four to five rounds at a time.

Their attack on the large group of monsters had gone 'mostly' flawlessly. The ant-apes reacted as they expected and began funneling toward their formation along the flat bottoms of the valleys between hills. The first dozen had been handled quite easily, but the remaining ones had surprised them and started moving like a wave, sweeping over their position as a line. Apparently the first ones that had been killed acted as enough of a barrier to make the others go around which in turn made them begin sweeping over the hills.

The result was that the once clearly outlined choke point was no longer doing its job and they were forced to group closer together in a small triangle formation to ward off the creatures from every side. Val had covered them in an illusion that seemed to confuse the monsters, but that confusion just made them run in random directions and flail wildly at anything they bumped into.

"I got it." Kurt said as he turned to support Val. He fired a trio of rounds at one ant-ape that was moving laterally across his field of view. One round hit and dropped it while the other two missed the surprisingly hard to hit creatures. Those two other rounds did find something later on, however.

One of the errant shots took another of the monsters, a hundred yards behind the one he shot at, hitting in its special place and it shut down in an instant. The final round glanced off the ground with a puff of dirt and went whizzing off into the forest. A moment later a brief, orange flash lit the sky.

Kurt wasn't sure what to think about that, then realized what the most likely source was based on the direction they had been moving in. "Oopsie."

Suddenly all the monsters went wild. They began flailing about and attacking everything that moved, including each other. Kurt and the girls did their best to keep whittling them down, but the sudden insanity and savagery was more than a little unexpected.

More than once, Kurt had to duck a swing or dodge out of the way as the creatures rampaged around. Kristi was using her barriers and force spikes to deal with any that got in close, not taking chances after her last scuffle. Val was ducking behind a tree just as one of them swung at the trunk and began pummeling the wood rather than the kitsune.

"What the fuck is happening?" Val asked. She ducked down and fired a short burst and took another monster out at the knees. "They just went wild."

"No idea, just keep trying to put them down." Kurt said and changed magazines, inserting a fresh one from his storage ring. "Kristi, how are you on ammo?"

"Damn it Kurt you didn't put a counter on this thing, so how should I know." She shot back while ripping off a long burst that took down three of the ant-apes.

"Noted" Kurt said to himself.

Shooting a quick glance around, Kurt saw that more of the creatures were converging on them. Well, the creatures were converging on the area, not them specifically. Some of the newcomers were spattered in the now familiar green blood and more than a few moved strangely with broken or missing limbs.

"Guys, this is getting out of hand." Val said, likely having seen what Kurt had just seen.

'Change'. The urge seemed to echo through Kurt's mind, and he shook his head. 'Change and fight'. The instinct insisted and was pushing him to shift but he was reluctant. Changing magazines again the instinct became more insistent. 'Change and hunt or struggle and die' was the feeling he was getting, a feeling that was echoed a moment later by Kristi.

"I don't think this is going to end well." She said while taking a step back to avoid getting bulldozed by a charging ant-ape.

"AHhhh FUCK! Fine!" Kurt swore and began to store all his stuff in his ring. "Just don't fucking shoot me."

"Kurt, what a…" Val began but stopped when she saw his frame already expanding.

Where once was a normal sized human-ish man, there was now a rapidly expanding werewolf. Kurt's limbs shifted and lengthened, growing the long, grey and black fur that he always had as a werewolf. Then his frame filled in, muscle packing on while his head and face contorted into that of a wolf with glowing amber eyes.

His claws and fangs seemed to lengthen and stretch endlessly as they grew to match his new form, only stopping when the top of his ears were fifteen feet above the ground. On reflex and instinct, Kurt threw his head back and let out a long howl. The tone was so much lower than normal from the extra size and how his new throat and vocal cords were shaped, causing the air to vibrate in response.

Kristi and Val both covered their ears and ducked their heads in response to the sudden and deafening noise. The kitsune looked up just in time to see Kurt's massive form lurch forward into the crowds of ant-apes and set about eviscerating everything that came within arm's reach.

"Holy fuck." Kristi said, her machinegun now hanging slack on its sling as she watched the spectacle.

"I know." Val said. "He's glorious." Her voice held a tone in it that seemed like reverence, and it caused Kristi to look at her strangely.

The dragoness snapped out of her little daze and shook Val. "Come on, we still have our own work to do." She said and got her friend to help her begin clearing out the monsters in the direction that Kurt wasn't rampaging in.

*****

Kurt's instincts that he had fought to suppress on the night he was granted his title were still making themselves known. He didn't mind the ones that clued him in to smells or sounds that he should be worried about. He didn't even mind the ones that pushed him to mate with Val, though he kept that to himself. What he did mind was the ones that told him to go on a mindless blood bender.

'Bite them. Thrash them. Kill them.' That little bundle of instinct was all but screaming at him. He fought against the urge to listen and instead used his new advantages to wreak havoc among the rift monsters. This wasn't without problems, however.

Being able to look into a second story window without even standing on his toes sounded impressive but reality was not always so helpful. The monsters that Kurt was fighting were on average seven feet tall, which meant that his long, clawed arms ended at chest level for them. Sounds great but in reality, he wanted to use his reach which meant he had to lower himself to their level and swing his long arms to do damage to the area they were weakest.

There were still other problems that he discovered. Having super strength and a body that was more than capable of handling it was awesome! But when he tried to kick an ant-ape, his foot went through it, and he found it still dangling from his ankle a minute later.

His only real saving grace was that he was also a half elf and enjoyed some benefits from that part of his heritage. His elven mind allowed him to process the information and adapt to it faster than he would have hoped. While he did make mistakes, he quickly learned from them, having the mental clarity speed of thought to see where he went wrong and correct it.

A few minutes and a few hundred yards into his whirlwind of death, Kurt was finding a balance and once more bring his brutal efficiency to bear. Strikes that would normally over penetrate and leave him exposed no longer happened. Wasted movements in finding his next target were nearly zero. Letting perfectly good, mostly dead creatures lie, not in this lifetime.

Kurt grabbed a barely struggling, which is to say mostly dead, ant-ape by its lower thorax and took aim at two monsters that were fighting each other. A quick guestimate before deciding to just side arm toss the creature in his grasp netted him a few more kills as he spun from the move and lashed out with a foot. His toe claws bisected another monster, and he came to a stop a moment later.

For once, he found that there wasn't a press of enemies swinging at his knees and he looked around to find the few remaining stragglers. Those that were late to the party, or the ones that had been so injured that they were crawling forward, were being picked off by the girls. He did a quick circuit of the hill they had started at and only found one group fighting each other that he needed to take care of.

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While looping back to the girls, his eye caught a strange glint in the valley between some hills and went to inspect it. He had expected a dropped bit of equipment or maybe a natural treasure like the crystals they found in the last rift. What he found instead was the core.

The dark orange ball of crystal was cracked and had a strange hole in it that he didn't have time to examine. Kurt just counted his blessings that it was already dealt with and loped off to find the girls. The sound of sporadic gunfire easily guided him to the duo in mere seconds. He just hoped that they wouldn't freak out at the sight of him running toward them.

When he caught sight of them, he approached slowly, hoping they would notice him before he got there. It turns out he really didn't have much to worry about, as they had both seen him and began moving his way. However they still approached with at least a little care.

"Dayum." Val said, using the proper inflection. "You are huge." She smiled and wrapped her arms around his leg, giving him a hug.

Kurt looked down at her and hade a chuffing noise at her comment but very much appreciated the open display of affection. He knew he was big and didn't need her to make fun of him. Kristi seemed to also be over the shock after Val had spoken.

"Glorious." She said, parroting Val from earlier as she roamed her eyes up and down him. Kristi had seen a few powerful beings in her day and they always had a certain aura around them, just like Kurt now had. It wasn't a shining light or even anything palpable, just a presence that made people take note and act with a little more respect. She circled as she inspected him from every angle which made Kurt a little self-conscious. "I do wonder about something, however. Are you always this big or can you revert to your previous size?"

That was a good question. A question that his new instincts seemed to know the answer to. He slowly shrank down, reverting to his previous height of nearly nine feet before actually going a little further and stopping at just over seven feet. He also used the opportunity to reshape his muzzle to allow him to speak… kinda.

"It would appear I can." Kurt said. His voice came out in a mix between a whisper and a howl, with a strange reverberation underlying the words. "Well, this is fucking weird." He would have to practice with it at some point.

He began shifting back to his human form, trying to ignore the minor aches the process caused. While it wasn't nearly as bad as before his injection, it would seem that the nanobots weren't completely assisting with the process still. Once back in human form, Kurt resummoned his clothes, making them appear directly on his body. It was a trick he had quickly mastered with only a few hangups while learning the process.

"Uhoha, its fucking cold." He said as he shivered. "I found the core already." He summoned the orb and held it out.

"What happened to it?" Kristi asked.

"Did you see that flash of orange before the monsters lost their shit?" Kurt asked and Val immediately filled in the blanks after seeing the hole in the side of the ball.

"A stray round hit the core and knocked it out." She tapped the strange oval hole. "A round tumbled and hit the core here. Ooh, hang on." She fished a flashlight from her ring and held it to the core, turning it around as she looked for something.

"Right there." Kurt said and pointed to the bullet that was still lodged in the middle of the orange ball. "Look at the track." He ran his finger along and pointed out the chaotic and tumbling path the bullet took after it hit the core.

Kristi looked at it in detail for a moment before shaking her head. "These cores are so weird. It's hard like glass but doesn't shatter when hit by a bullet. "

Kurt thought for a moment. It was strange how the cores were rock hard when he handled them but seemed to act like soft tissue when shot. Very dense soft tissue but tissue none the less.

After a few more words about the nature of cores and how they were the opposite of oobleck, they began making their way back. They did keep their eyes open for any stragglers and ended up putting down two more of the ant-apes on the route back to the portal.

As far as rifts went, this one had been relatively quick and painless. It did make him wonder how a team without modern guns would handle the situation. He would not want to try and get within spear range of these creatures or try to hack and stab them to death.

They found the portal pretty much just the way they had left it and Kurt noticed something about the area. He likely wouldn't have noticed it if the forest hadn't been so regular and cookie cutter. The portal was the only divergence from the pattern of hills, valleys and trees.

Where there should be a hill with exactly seventeen trees on it, there was a flat bit with only nine of the strange, lifeless trees. Those nine were still in the shape of a ring but the other eight were missing from the pattern.

Kurt wasn't sure about the importance of this observation, but he was happy to know that the portal from the altars seemed to make a space, rather than randomly drop them. Now that he thought about it, that was likely how its obscuration magic worked in the first place.

With a shrug and a mental note to tell the girls about it later, Kurt stepped back through and into the hub. He hadn't quite realized how cold he was until back into the warmth of the office and feeling the stinging flush on his face and hands. In an instant, the glasses on his face fogged over and he was nearly blind, so he stepped aside while trying to pull them off through the layers of his balaclava, hat and earpiece.

Val seemed to be even worse off since she stopped short, unable to see and had Kristi plow right into her and knock them both to the ground in a pile of weapons and armor. "Oops, aaaah shit!" she cried out while stumbling down the half step of the altar.

Kurt tried to reach out to catch her, but couldn't see while fighting with his own eyewear, and she slipped through his gloved fingers. Kristi was trying hard to not land on her friend and attempted to roll to the side as she fell but ended up with her leg catching an already unbalanced Kurt behind the knees.

"Oof." Kurt had the wind knocked out of him as he fell and landed on his back. He reached out his hand top try and break his fall.

"HEE-Ooooh!" Kristi made a strange noise and Kurt only knew what caused it when he moved his hand and found it wedged firmly in the gap of her thighs.

Kurt quickly removed his hand and rolled to the side, getting off the pile at the cost of smacking his elbow against the altar. "Ah, Fuck!"

"This is… undignified." Val groaned from under Kristi as she tried to climb off her without causing further injury. "I really am glad nobody saw that."

"I will pretend nothing happened." Penny said while laughing and immediately closed her mouth when all three of them glared at her. "Promise?" she squeaked.

"Ugh, fine but I better not hear anything about it." Val said after climbing to her feet and giving Kristi a hand to help her up. "Kurt?" she called out.

"Yeah, yeah. Adding an enchant so they repel water, dirt, fog, and everything else." He said while still cradling his elbow.

"Not what I was going to say but ok." Val gestured to Penny. "Give her the core and let's get some food. I am starving, cold and tired."

She then turned to Kristi, who was looking very embarrassed. The dragoness had one hand behind her back, trying to soothe her butt where Kurt's hand had landed but was also rubbing her thighs together in a telling way.

"Here's the core." Kurt said to Penny. "And here are the recordings for the order scientists." He grabbed the cameras off his armor along with the girls. "You might want to scrub some of that footage since it relates to my new condition." He said with a hard look in their handler's eyes.

"Got it. I will scrub it personally." She said. "Have a good night, guys, I'll talk to you tomorrow." And with that, she left, returning to the order while the others went to get cleaned up and have dinner.

*****

"…It would seem that they are either complicit in the act or they directly aided. We are unsure at this time and their leader is being surprisingly tight lipped." Said Aziri, the director of Earth intelligence from his spot at the conference table. The vampire seemed more than happy to no longer be in the spotlight as he sat back down.

"Who was responsible for bringing this group in?" asked Casitor. He was the chairman for Earthbound operations for the Order. "I want to see a bonus paid out to that team by the end of the week. Standard rate plus five percent."

"That would be one of my teams." Jay answered the old gargoyle. "I will make sure Kurt and company get the good news by Friday."

Jay smirked at the looks of annoyance and grumbling from the other regional directors for field offices. He also noted the wince from Casitor and his smirk grew into a full smile as the old man was forced to eat some crow after committing. He knew it would be a one-time thing, and he wouldn't make the mistake of committing that kind of money without knowing again.

"Ha, very well." He said. "Since you are standing already, how about you kick off the reports for regional field operations."

"Can do." Jay said as he took over the presenting role and projected his slides on the screen. "My teams have picked up significant attention from cults in the areas they operate in. It is actually a little uncanny how they are now three for three in attempting an abduction within the first few days of signing."

"Any leads on that?" Aziri asked.

"Not yet but next time my teams take some alive we can let you guys take a crack at them instead of the regular interrogators."

"It would be much appreciated, thank you." Azri said before sliding back into his little pool of shadow again.

"No problem." Jay answered. "My other item is that the rifts are picking up in quantity. As we learned earlier today, the numbers are trending sharply upward. I think my three teams, two of which are already in North America, will require additional backup or another region will have to pull more to their teams."

One of the goblin regional managers who presides over one of the Asian regions spoke up. "I don't know about anyone else, but my teams can't pull any more rifts. All of mine are averaging four per quarter." She said. There was a lot of nodding heads and murmurs of agreement from the other managers.

Casitor snorted. "Wow, very impressive. Jay, how long has your team in the mid-west been up and running?" Jay was pretty certain he knew where this was going but decided to play along anyway.

"Less than a month."

"And how many rifts have they dealt with?"

Jay checked his phone and saw the message from his assistant. "They just finished their third about half an hour ago."

"Absolutely ridiculous!"

"I don't buy that."

"Hell yeah!"

The reactions from the other regional managers were as predictable as they were varied. Jay could have guessed with almost perfect accuracy who would say what. He also knew that, while Casitor didn't care for the half-breed agents, he did care about results.

Once more, standing at the head of the table and looking into the clump of regional managers, Casitor spoke slowly. "You all need to get your shit together. If Jay can have a cherry field office running three rifts in a month while still asking for more, your teams can do the same. If you can't manage, maybe you need to ask him for some advice."

He then looked to his admin assistant, an imp with a passion for logistics and energy drinks, judging by the stack of cans near his chair. "Anything else on today's agenda, Kitansk?" when the imp shook his head, Casitor continued. "By this time next quarter, I want better results, plans to improve or resignation letters. Jay, good job and put a proposal for more teams on my desk by next week for me to review. Everyone else, thank you for coming and we will see you next month."

Grabbing his things, Jay left the boardroom and returned to his office. It was late in the day so he decided to wait till the morning to tell Kurt about the roughly quarter million dollars he would be getting. Not that it would matter much, he barely spent any of the money he had already. He sighed, weighed his options, then decided he would just stop by in person.

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