2/19th SWG Barracks
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
28 October, 1987
0600

The fifth floor hallway was dark as I slammed through the doors, ice shattering from the double doors as I threw myself through them. I knew, from doing PT at Atlas, that I was able to run faster than Stillwater over short distances. He'd crush me in any long distance run though, the man ran marathons and seemed to have an endless supply of endurance. That was without even taking into account that he had one foot in the grave and who knows how Alfenwehr had "enhanced" him.

Heavy thudding bootsteps followed me as I sprinted down the hallway. I could tell he was losing ground on me, but I had no idea of where I could go. There was no chance I could lose him, and if I tried doubling back to the room full of pregnant women all that would happen is he'd follow me to them and have himself a good old breeding festival after killing the other two men.

Part of me wondered, as I ran beneath the gutted emergency light, how much of it had to do with Aine's influence. She was a forest fey, well, had that running through her blood, and forest fey were obsessed with blood lines and good strong breeding pools. At least Aine was.

The light kicked on and filled the hallway with dim red light that glittered on the ice covered walls, throwing my shadow ahead of me.

My bra was cutting painfully into the top of my breasts, but I couldn't take the time to adjust it. Better to spend my energy running.

In a way, I knew I was just making it worse. Stillwater and Aine both had talked about a ritual their families followed in the fall. Get all the young bucks together, have them drink a mixture of blood and herbs, let them chase willing women through the harvested fields and into the woods that surrounded their farms. Aine called it a blood hunt, Stillwater hadn't ever taken part in it, his Father, the Sergeant Major, refusing to send his boys to it.

Still, hunting was in that boy's blood, and me running probably just made things worse. Instincts, tradition, and that damned lizard would all be inflamed by the chase, his libido increasing with every thudding boot fall.

...wait...

Hunting me would get his blood pumping. Burning oxygen. It would hit the primal areas of his brain.

The ice over the middle doors held for a second, then shattered around me like broken glass when I threw myself against the door. I managed to keep my footing, avoid stepping on any chunks of ice, and keep right on running for the far end of the hallway.

It would force the lizard to run repairs even harder. Push the blood through his body. Hit him where he lived. Push the male part of him to the surface.

The mid-way emergency light kicked on, bathing the hallway in blood.

Burn away Alfenwehr's taint from his blood, mind, and body. Aine's influence would push back that darkness, that foul taint that the mountain left on everything. Lust and breeding was a primal instinct, right up there with eat.

All I had to do was keep out of Stillwater's reach until...

One of the hallway doors in front of me flew out of the doorway, exploding from where it had been closed. It slammed into the opposite doorway, which caved in under the force, both doors tumbling into the room beyond.

Stillwater stepped out of the room, that red eye glowing.

"Oh, come on!" I shouted, sliding to a stop. He kicked the bottom of the door further into the room opposite of the one he had come out of.

Before he managed to clear that area, before I had even come to a complete stop, I was running in the opposite direction, my boots sliding on the frost on the floor, the lack of traction making it so that I was still heading toward him.

I caught traction and began running away from him right before I heard his boots hit the floor.

...run, don't look back, just run...

I flew back down the hallway, already knowing what I was going to do.

The middle stairwell door held for a second when I pulled on it. I got one boot against the wall and yanked, snatching it open to the cracking of ice. I left skin behind on the door handle, the bitter cold freezing my skin to the metal, but I ignored it to throw myself down the stairs.

He didn't come through the door after me.

I didn't bother taking the steps. I jumped from one landing to the next, not caring about the risk. I just had a horrible feeling that his first thrust would gut me like a fish. Not exactly how I wanted to go.

When I hit the second floor I heard the door at the bottom of the stairwell crash open. I was ready for it and instead threw open the door to Far Hammerhead Hall and started running down the hallway. The door stayed open, the auto-closing mechanism destroyed the by the cold and me ripping open the door.

There was nowhere to really go. I just needed to run, keep running until he was closer to Stillwater again. That was my only hope. I ran under the emergency light, which thankfully stayed off, and headed for the Far Stairwell. All I could think was run, keep running, try to escape the monster that had stomped out of my nightmares.

Six doors from the end of the hallway and the door I was passing exploded into pieces as Stillwater lunged from the darkness of one of the rooms, grabbing my arm and yanking me close. His hand was warm, no longer feeling ice cold, as he pulled at me. I screamed at him, not out of fear, but pure rage, reaching up and pushing against his chin, forcing his head back, and slamming his elbow with my other hand to collapse his arm and rob him of some of his leverage. He wasn't that much taller than me, closer to his normal six foot, and the condensation that blew into my face smelled of blood.

His hands grabbed me around the waist, lifting me up.

I got one knee up, pressing it against his chest, keeping him from pulling me against him. He shifted again, grabbing my shirt, and I knew what he was going to do right before he did it.

The sound of the fabric tearing was louder than it had any right to be, and I screamed in his face as my shirt and bra came away in his hand. He had a hold on my belt, holding me off the ground by the waist of my BDU bottoms, and I managed to get one foot up, against his chest, and start shoving as hard as I could.

He lost his grip and I fell from his grasp, landing hard on my ass. I managed to get my elbows back and keep my head from slamming into the ground, but my sore guts twinged and sharp pain flared up when my ass hit.

When he reached for me I knew he was over-balanced. Ignoring the cold floor I laid back, hooked my legs in his and rolled, exactly like he had made sure everyone at Atlas was trained to do, taking his legs out from under him. It didn't matter how big he was, how strong he was, balance was balance and physics rules all.

He crashed to the floor next to me as I rolled again and scrambled to my feet. My back was on fire from where the sweat that had covered it had frozen to floor and taken a layer of my skin off when I rolled, but I ignored it. He had landed in the pushup position and was turning to look at me with that flat dead eye and the burning red one. I swept his elbow out from under him with a looping swipe of my foot and then stepped between his shoulder blades. He stayed up, off balance, but still up, and I literally ran down his body, stepping on his back, his ass, and one thick thigh, before I was back on the floor and running.

Despite the deadly cold of the barracks I was sweating as I ran back down the hallway. The chase and the fear had pushed my body temperature up. Sure, my nipples hurt, my back was on fire, my guts burned, and my crotch was raw agony, but that didn't matter.

All that mattered was moving. Keeping ahead of the monster that my squad leader had become.

At least I knew that it really wasn't him. It wasn't like some housewife telling herself that the man who had just caved in her face and was plowing her up the backside in the kitchen wasn't her drunken husband, what was chasing me wasn't actually my squad leader. Hell, wasn't even really human all the way.

The half-dead didn't count.

I looked behind me to see that he was gone as I approached the Middle Stairwell. I slid to a stop, looking back the way I had come.

Dammit, where was he? Was he waiting in the stairwell? Was he further down the hallway? Was he inside a room waiting for me to pass by to crash through the door like Jason Vorhees?

I heard/sensed movement behind me and whirled around right as a pair hands grabbed me.

"If it isn't Big Tits," A man I recognized laughed. One of 32nd's guys. There were four others with him, two of them grabbing my arms, one moving behind me, and one shouldering aside the one holding onto my upper arm to grab both my tits in his hands. He squeezed hard and I screamed, fighting, trying to get lose.

"Let me go, you've got to..." I started.

The one who had spoke shouldered the one squeezing my tits out of the way and slapped me, hard, expecting it to ring my bell and silence me. His wedding ring cut my mouth and the force of the blow pushed two of my bottom teeth into my lip.

"We ain't letting shit go, bitch," He snarled.

The one behind me wrapped his arm around my neck, pulling me backwards, arcing my back.

"Damn, bitch got some titties on her," The one on my right said, squeezing tight on my biceps.

"She got a tight ass pussy too," The one holding my left arm laughed, rotating his hands in opposite directions, trying to give me an Indian rope burn. I recognized his voice from the last time I'd been in his power.

"You don't under..." I tried again.

The first one slapped me again with the back of his hand, snapping my head around. I saw blood from my mouth spatter on the wall.

I sagged slightly, putting my weight on the guy trying to hold me up. His grip loosened and I let my head fall forward. He loosened his grip more.

"She's getting the idea now," He said. Someone shoved their hand down the back of my pants, trying to squirm their fingers between my cheeks. "Bitch's holes are plenty tight," his voice was ugly, full of dark mirth.

He screamed when I stomped hard on his foot with the heel of my combat boot at the same time as I whipped my head back. Something crunched, but I wasn't done. I lifted up both feet and drove them forward. Not into their chests, I wasn't an action star. I drove a heel into the legs of each of the men in front of me, slamming the hard heel of my combat boots into their knees.

The one behind me let go of me, staggering back, and the one on the right let go of my arm, bringing his fist back to punch me in the face.

I went limp, pulling the guy on my left down slightly.

The punch the guy on my right threw went over my head and slammed into his buddy's face. That one let go of me.

The freezing tile froze to my sweaty skin as soon as the moisture covered flesh touched it. It didn't matter, I was charged with adrenaline and I rolled as soon as I hit, my hands dropping to my boots.

I ignored the pain as I gashed open the flesh above my right ankle.

The one of my right, who had thrown the punch and was starting to lean down made a gurgling noise when I stabbed him in the throat, letting go of the knife and grabbing his leg as he straightened up. Blood sprayed from between his fingers and he grabbed his throat beneath the knife hilt that jutted from his Adam's apple.

The two I kicked grabbed at my legs and I started kicking again. They started howling as my legs pistoned out and slammed my boots into them.

My friend called me Thunder Thighs. There was a reason, and it wasn't because they were fat. My tits were fat. My ass was fat. My muffin was fat.

My thighs were not.

Bone crunched under my boots as the one that had grabbed me around the neck reached down and grabbed my hair. I felt more skin tear off my back as he pulled me to my feet. The hold on the leg of the one I'd stabbed in the throat yanked him off his feet and his head made a hollow sound as it hit the floor. The one behind me yelled, but he let me get my feet under me as he started punching me between my shoulder blades.

"You fucking whore!" One of the ones I had been kicking bellowed out right before I caught him the mouth with the toe of my boot. He spit blood and teeth. The one who had gotten punched grabbed my neck and one of my fat tits, squeezing both, as if I was still human enough to be affected by pain.

I got my feet under me and stabbed the one who had gotten punched in the face in the stomach, under his sternum, grinning at him. His screams were high, reminding me of the horse on my grandmother's farm that some hunter had shot out from under me when he mistook it for a deer. It had been hit in the guts, screaming and kicking as we had gone down.

...when you're ambushed by yourself, it doesn't matter who you hit, it'll always be the enemy...

Blood poured over my fist as I yanked the knife out. He fell back through the open laundry-room door, hands over the wound, back arcing up.The one who had me by the hair suddenly let go and I spun in place, knife coming up, ready to cut his life out.  The knife came up, under my chin, and my straightened right hand was vertical, edge out toward the man who had pulled me up to my feet.

The hair puller's eyes were staring at me. As I watched blood trickled from his right nostril and his face was turning slightly blue. He exhaled, a shuddering sound, and blood poured out of his mouth in a sudden gush. I looked down to see someone had their arm around his waist, hand bunched in the front of his uniform.

I looked up as he suddenly went boneless and collapsed, revealing someone else, someone wearing cold weather BDU's.

Stillwater stared at me, his Gerber Mark II fighting knife gleaming wetly in the dimness as his hand came forward and grabbed my upper arm.

...oh shit...