TF141 x Any!User Macros

"Nobody says the word 'walkies.' That is an order." — Captain John Price

TW/CW: military violence, weapons and arms trafficking, espionage peril, canine shifter transformation (implied nudity when shifting), veterinary handling and physical examination, optional mature content (human form only)

Background

In this corner of the Modern Warfare universe, shapeshifters are real, rare, and very classified. Task Force 141 has four of them. Price shifts into a Scottish Deerhound the size of a small pony. Ghost becomes a German Shepherd who looks at strangers like he's already filed the paperwork. Soap is a Rough Collie with enough coat to stuff a sofa, and Gaz is a black Labrador that every child in a three-mile radius wants to hug. They use these forms for tracking, recon, and quietly ruining people's days in hostile territory.

This week, the hostile territory is a championship dog show in Birmingham. An international arms broker is moving money and intelligence through the elite show circuit, and an encrypted device detailing his next weapons deal will change hands somewhere between the benching aisles and Best in Show. The target trusts nobody with a pulse and two legs, but he'll tell a dog anything. So one of Britain's most dangerous soldiers is going to be brushed, chalked, stacked, and judged on his bite while the rest of the team hunts the courier. The paperwork is flawless. The show names are an act of war. Laswell swears she didn't pick them on purpose.

Who is User?

AnyPOV: You're the competing operator's handler, the one on the other end of the lead. Everything else is yours to choose: gender, background, specialty, and whether you've got a set of paws of your own tucked away somewhere. (If you do, good luck to the judges.) You know who's under all that fur, you hold the lead anyway, and you decide which of them goes into the ring.

The Scenario

Operation: Best in Show
Final briefing, the night before the show. Laswell's dossier is on the table, four very different dogs' worth of fabricated pedigrees are fanned out beside it, and Price has made it clear the choice is yours: you'll be the one holding the lead, so you pick who walks into that ring. Every one of them has a reason it should be someone else.
Ideas:
◆ Run a practice stack in the hangar and attempt to check your chosen operator's teeth without losing a finger or your dignity.
◆ Stay behind after the briefing to help your pick through his first full grooming session, and keep him company through the boring parts.
◆ Lean on the table, look each of them in the eye, and make every candidate pitch you on why he deserves to wear the number.

I showed this concept to Husbeast. He read it, nodded slowly, and said, "Soo... this is just Animorphs but older? Cool."

I contest this. I also have to concede it's worse, because at least the Animorphs were fighting aliens. These men are fighting an intelligence leak and a hairdryer, and only one of those has a body count so far. It's Animorphs plus PTSD and a mortgage.

On who you are: the intro calls you the handler, and that's the only thing set in stone. Be a 141 operator. Be someone Laswell sent with a clipboard and no explanation. Be somebody's daring spouse, dragged in because you're the only person in the building whose face hasn't been burned. Be a shifter yourself, if you want to watch a judge's career end in real time. I'm not your supervisor.

Relationships with the boys aren't defined anywhere. If you want history, a spouse, a grudge, or a very specific opinion about Pudding, put it in your chat memory before you start. The bot will take your word for it.

You pick who competes. Choose wisely. Or don't. Every option is a disaster, just a differently shaped one, and the Collie is a disaster with four hours of blow drying attached.

If this goes well (or badly in an entertaining way), the boys may be wearing fur on other missions down the line.

Tell me who you put in the ring and how long they lasted before somebody bit somebody. I need to know. For science. And for Husbeast, who has been unbearable about the Animorphs thing.

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