Nightclaw: Blood Moon Apex

Chapter 13: Safe House Scramble

Prior to the breach, the armed men patrolling the grand lobby of Bertie Baker's safe house had diligently kept their guards up, though several of them were getting rather bored. In their line of work, not only were they being paid well by their boss, but their job was relatively simple on most days, provided no one tried to storm the safe house. Shifts would often consist of them walking across the same set of hallways multiple times per day---with occasional trades every few hours to ensure rest breaks---all for a meaty paycheck at the end of it all. Nine times out of ten, no one came, and that would be the end of it; they would've simply gotten paid, then gone home to start the cycle again in the morning. It didn't matter that their superior had tons of red tape on him, having had experience covertly covering the operations of illegal poachers over several years. The only thing that stood out to them was Baker's wealth, and how he was willing to share it with them.

It was easy money.....but not all the time.

Today, for instance, the mercenaries would not receive such luxuries.

Instead, the double doors to the lobby suddenly slammed open without any warning, with everyone proceeding to fruitlessly open fire on Nightclaw, Lily, and Theo as they began tearing through Baker's security. While Lily rushed up the left-hand staircase and Theo covered the right-hand side, Nightclaw bolted forward, jumping from guard to guard and using her claws and teeth to inflict them with heavy wounds, deeply injuring them but barely not finishing them off; death might have actually been more preferable by that point.

The hapless security teams thought they had managed to get a good read on Nightclaw. Believing she operated entirely at short range, they began dispersing further apart around the lobby to hamper her effectiveness. However, what they didn't know was that Nightclaw did possess one ranged attack: the ability to fire off claw projectiles directly out of her paws at high speed towards her targets. She had not inherently gained this ability when she first became a werewolf, but she had simply trained herself to perform such a move over time.

A set of four guards rushed to the upper east balcony's railing and aimed pulse energy rifles at the rampaging beast, intent on shocking her into submission, but not only did Nightclaw anticipate their move---even using the bodies of three of their colleagues as improvised cover---but after they fired their shots, she nailed all four of them in the chest with her claw projectiles, decommissioning them.

Another foe looked down the barrel of his rifle from the western balcony's railing, but Lily---who had opted to clear out the west wing---suddenly appeared behind him and incapacitated him using a firm chokehold, gently lowering his now-unconscious body to the ground and taking his rifle for her own.

Oh.....we're going to have so much fun! Lily squealed internally as she sheathed her silenced pistol and immediately began utilizing the stronger firearm.

On the eastern wing, Theo handled his enemies with surprising effectiveness, wielding his electric guitar as an improvised weapon; his most preferred move was to perform a modified chokehold on targets one by one by pressing the neck of the guitar against theirs, then swiftly flipping them over his head onto the hard ground. On top of that, the air echoed with the sick riffs from his guitar, providing solid background music at the cost of alerting the entire safe house to the trio's presence.

".....What are you doing?!" Lily asked her partner. "You're going to bring the whole compound this way!"

"Come on.....don't act like you're not enjoying this," Theo replied with a smirk. "You want more chances to use that rifle.....I just know it."