Title: The Wild
Author: Intentionally Obscure Author

Disclaimer: This story isn't mine. It was originally released as an issue of "What If..." by Marvel Comics, but thought that it could be applied extremely well to the Oz situation, and at the time I basically wanted an exercise in fleshing out a graphic story in descriptive terms. This was the result.

-----

A howl tears through the night sky. It is an utterly primal sound, the sound of an animal. Vital. Fierce. No man ever made such a sound.

The noise comes from a beast perched at the pinnacle of a cliff. The cliff overlooks a forest shrouded by night; silver moonlight reflecting off leaves shiny with dew. Behind the beast similar terrain stretches out to the horizon.

The beast itself is unlike anything else roaming these woods. In many respects, it resembles a wolf. Thick brown fur lies draped over a body which heaves with each howling cry. But its body is shaped wrong. It almost seems more man than animal. The muzzle is much shorter than that of a typical wolf. And yet the creature's limbs end not in hands, but a wolf's paw. It is not a man, but neither is it completely a wolf.

However, this strange mixture is not apparent in his eyes. They are the eyes of a beast, pure and strong. No intelligence shines within them.

He was not always this way.

Though he has no memory of the days he walked erect, speaking more than guttural grunts, he was once a man. Some might even have called him a hero.

But he is not who he was. No remembrance now, no regret. The beast he has become has lost the ability for such complex thought. His mind is on simpler things. Anxious pangs of hunger. Awareness of the life or death struggle for survival. Instinct for fight or flight.

And the dry-throat flutter of impending danger.

At the base of the cliff before him, he sees a heated battle. A large human, draped in the strange fabric coverings of his kind. A stranger to this world. He stares down a great bear, terror of these woods.

The man aims a black metal tube at the bear. There is a great roar and a sharp peal like thunder. The bear falls. Confident, the man bends over its body with a knife, preparing to clean his kill. Back turned, he is vulnerable to the beast, who sees that he may eat well tonight.

But something nags at him. From his vantage, he can feel the danger. But he cannot smell the bear's blood, or the strange chemical smell that always hangs in the air following mankind's strange thunder. Something isn't right. Once, he might have reasoned why this situation inspires a tension which bites the fur at the nape of his neck.

But he is not who he was. That man is dead.

With a growl, he throws himself toward the unsuspecting hunter. But before his victim is caught, the man fades away before his eyes. The colors and shapes of the hunter's body swirl for a moment, then are absorbed into a glowing object in the shrubs. The bear soon flickers away as well. The beast growls as eyes confirm what his other senses nagged to tell him. Too late.

Another man, this one possessed of a real scent, steps from the bushes, holding the glowing object in one hand. He speaks to himself, in words the beast doesn't understand.

"Well, at least the amulet works like they said it would."

In his other hand is another of the metal tubes. He aims it at the beast. "Freeze, Oz!"

Oz doesn't give him a chance to fire. With a roar, he leaps at this real foe. The gun is raised, too late. It is knocked from the stranger's hands, as is the talisman he used to conjure the illusion.

Oz looks at the amulet for a moment. The glow is fading within it, leaving a cold, dead piece of stone. It is nothing to the beast. But the man he was may have felt a bit of curiosity. That man is dead. So why does the beast stand over it, when all his instincts are telling him to flee?

The stranger's odd noises reach Oz's ears. He turns to face the man. A smaller gun is now held in a gloved hand.

"I've gone through a lot to track you, Oz. Oz? ... My God, they were right. You can't even understand me, can you?"

There are things he understands. That the stranger's claw is powerful, and dangerously familiar. That this struggle, like every other, is life or death. With a grunt, he turns and throws himself into the darkness, dodging the shots fired from the stranger's gun.

The stranger speaks into the darkness, his voice grim.

"This has gone on too long. They've given me what I need to take you. Hard or easy, it's happening. Your days as a monster are over, Oz..."

++++++++++

Time has no meaning for him. If it did, he might recall it's been ten years since his last human contact. This meeting has awakened something he hasn't felt in all those years. Something that, hours later, draws him back to the site of the confrontation.

Call it awakening intelligence. Maybe more.

Call it primal thoughts of revenge. Maybe less.

Call it a painful rebirth of long-dead memory...

He finds the stranger sitting against a tree, the talisman before him on the ground. His eyes are closed, as he concentrates wholely on the object. As the stranger focuses, the talisman begins to glow again. Slowly, an image forms. It is an older human, his hair beginning to thin and become gray. A pair of spectacles are perched on his nose. Giles. The word rises in Oz's mind, though no memories come attached to it.

His voice fades in and out, as the stranger's control of the object waxes and wanes. Tiny snippets of some sort of illusory message become audible, only to vanish in time with the flickering images. The sounds drift across the night.

"...made a mistake ... have to ... have to ... have to ... give up, Oz ... have to ... die ..."

The rebirth of the memories of another time. Another life.

The image of the old man fades, to be replaced by a young woman. Long red hair hangs to the sides of her face, framing sad eyes. Sorrow is etched in her appearance, her voice. She has been crying. Something deep within Oz recognizes her, and matches her sadness. She too speaks, though her words mean nothing to the beast.

"Oz, I ... sent to hunt you ... humanely ... to say goodbye, and ... I'm ... I'm sorry..."

The woman's words, though he does not understand them, awaken a strange anxiety inside him. It pulls him out of hiding. He reaches toward the shining talisman while the stranger's eyes are still closed.

His paw cannot lift the object. The creature he has become has no fingers with which to grasp. He tries repeatedly, becoming more and more agitated. But his paw merely scrabbles helplessly across the object, finding no purchase.

"Bang."

He leaps back, terror making his heckles rise. The stranger is pointing the larger gun in his direction, smiling. Oz makes one more swipe for the talisman, still unable to lift it.

Allowing desire to override instinct is a distinct trait of intelligence. And out here, an often fatal error.

Dodging the stranger's shots, he once again flees. This time, the stranger gives pursuit. He tries to evade, running erratically in an attempt to throw off his pursuer.

"Pulling a zigzag maneuver? Maybe you're not as far gone as everyone thinks! Better for me. Because maybe whatever humanity you've still got inside you can see you're at a dead end. And you're making this harder than it has to be."

Though he doesn't understand the words, he reaches the same conclusion. After crashing along for a few moments, he has unintentionally come once more to the edge of the the cliff. He skids to a halt at the very edge, staring down over the precipice. A few pebbles dropping off into the abyss.

He turns, a cornered animal, and prepares to fight. A deep rumble rises deep within him. He bares glistening fangs, and prepares to pounce. But before he can attack, the stranger throws a net of a smooth, strong material over him. He tries desperately to move, and is able to barely squirm across the ground.

"Now, if there's really anything of the man left within you, you know it's over. Lets just - hey!"

Perhaps an animal would know the hopelessness of the situation, and sit, cowering, ready to strike at death's approaching hand. But a man can plan, and devise, and scheme. And a man can change the situation.

With a snarl, Oz hooks a claw over the edge of the cliff... and with a quick jerk, throws himself over. He bounces and rolls down the side, the net becoming entangled in the underbrush, left behind.

A man can calculate and adapt, where a beast could not. A man can survive, to live another day.

The stranger stood at the edge of the cliff, looking at his now empty net.

"Damn."

+++++++++

Since he left his mind behind, his past has never haunted him. Now, it seems, it has returned to kill him. And some ancient, buried part of him will not rest until it knows why. That part pains him.

There is a large, flat rock on the ground in front of him. The dirt around it has been scratched and disturbed, the rock unsettled from its moorings in the sod. He has been trying to lift it. He once again tries to pick up the stone. His paw once again scrapes ineffectually against it.

But his appearance is changing. The hair isn't as thick. His snout has retracted more. It looks almost like a face. In his eyes, there is a glimmer of ... something.

Those eyes close. He seems to be concentrating. But that is impossible, isn't it?

Suddenly, his right paw begins to change. The pads extend, becoming thinner. Soon, he holds a hand before his eyes. It is still covered in fur. Claws protruding from its fingertips. But it is nonetheless a hand.

He reaches down and lifts up the rock. Grunting, he beings to scrape it across the ground. Soon, it becomes clear what he is doing. After several minutes, he has dug a hole a few feet deep. He keeps digging.

His reawakening pains him. His newly conscious mind tugs at him, constantly returning to the glowing talisman, and the red haired female he saw talking through it. Willow. Somehow he associates that word, that seemingly meaningless series of sounds, with the woman he saw.

Memories of his past life are beginning to take shape. He remembers being in love with the red haired woman. He remembers having friends. He remembers that he wasn't like them... at times, he would become a beast, like he is now. He also remembers that something, he cannot recall what, happened to change him. Made his animal and human sides merge into one.

He begins to recall losing himself in the beast.

His mind returns to the object. And the enemy who possesses it. The enemy is powerful. But these are his woods, and his rules. Where the hunter can become hunted, and the predator prey.

Oz continues to dig. The lips on his snout curl upward in a peculiar statement. If it was possible, it would seem the beast is smiling.

+++++++

The stranger calmly sits in his camp, waiting for Oz to return. He had come once. He would again.

And the stranger isn't disappointed. He sees the strange hybrid of man and animal rushing through the woods twenty yards or so away from him. He quickly places the talisman in his bag, then picks up his gun and gives chase.

The stranger isn't sure whether it's his imagination or not, but it seems Oz has become more manlike. His hair seems to have thinned, his gait now more similar to a man's than a creature's.

"Why are you running? You know how this has to end. How we both want it to end." He ran for a moment more, than commented to himself, "Some part of him must, anyway."

Part of Oz is relieved that this hunt is near an end. That part feels pride in a trap well laid.

But part of him can find no joy in what is to come. What must come.

Oz leaps through the air, attempting to hurry ahead. Unfortunately, he comes to a crashing halt as his foot catches on a vine. The vine is torn loose from the tree across which it is hung. Thrown off his balance, Oz tumbles through the air, lands on his shoulder, and skisds to a stop. The stranger calmly lifts his gun to fire.

"Tripped up by your own jackrabbit act. Good. I've had about enough. Now, let's get down to business, shall we?"

The stranger's finger presses the trigger, preparing to shoot. And then he hears the swish of air behind him. He turns just in time to see a thick tree limb, a vine tied around its end, swinging toward him. Understanding dawns. The vine Oz ripped free was not accidental. It was a tripwire. This is a trap.

Oz isn't quite as mindless as he seems.

Before the stranger can move, the branch hits him. He's knocked forcefully back onto a patch of sticks and leaves on the ground. The patch collapses beneath him, revealing the hole Oz has dug. Sharp sticks jut up from the floor of the hole, waiting to impale anything that falls in.

The trap is crude. Rudimentary. And remarkably effective. The stranger falls in, and screams in agony as a sharp rod is driven through his stomach, another through his shoulder. He thrashes for a moment, then stills.

Oz listens carefully. No heartbeat. No breath. He has won.

A man might rejoice in victory, revel in his handiwork. A better one might know remorse at the unceremonious death of an adversary. Though perhaps he has taken a step closer, Oz is not yet either of these things. And he has other business.

With a low grunt, he heads back the way he came, in search of the talisman, and the red haired woman he saw earlier.

He finds it in the stranger's camp. He does not care about the tent or the fire. He wants the talisman, the object that pulls at this old and terrible humanity within him.

It is protruding from a small sack. He quickly grabs it up in his increasingly manlike hand and upturns it. To his surprise more than just the talisman falls out. There are several photographs, all showing strangely familiar things. A young man. Upon seeing him, something stirs. He should know this human.

It slowly dawns on him that he is seeing himself, from the life before this. The red haired woman is also there. With him. That ache grows stronger.

There is a small piece of white paper. Black markings are scrawled across it. Were he capable of reading, he would see that it spells out, "Dingoes Ate My Babies - Tonight at the Bronze, 7:00 pm - 12:00 am."

Turning away from these objects, he lifts the talisman. And suddenly, it shifts in his hand. Small, wiry tendrils shoot out of its sides, wrapping his hand in an unbreakable set of coils. More wires extend to the nearby oak tree and fasten it to that virtually immovable object. It begins to glow feircely.

His instincts scream for him to flee, but it is too late. He is trapped. For a beast, there is no greater terror.

He thought his enemy destroyed. Now, razor keen senses register the approach of footfalls. And part of him sees how he has been manipulated, and undone. He roars, attempting to pull free. He is unable to move away from the tree a single inch further than the wires reach.

It glows still brighter, searing his eyes. Images and sounds appear, bombarding his senses.

A cracking, British voice speaks in the night.

"Oz, it's me, Giles. We've gotten regular reports on your state of mind, so it's likely you won't even remember us, really. But you might recognize some of your own history. That's the chance we're taking, anyway, making this. Hoping you'll remember the life you had before, with us."

Oz sees images of himself, his clothes tattered, growing more and more animalistic. He sees himself and Willow together, kissing, dancing. He sees himself playing a strange instrument he only now remembers is called a guitar.

"When you returned, as you might hopefully remember, you thought you'd been cured. If you maintained your calm, controlled your emotional state, you could remain a man. But as we discovered, sharing a deep emotional attachment with Willow was too much. It brought out your primal nature against your will. You were afraid you would hurt us... You separated yourself from all of us, then. You were terrified that allowing yourself to become close to anyone would bring out the beast, and so you sent yourself into deep isolation. And to our shame, we let you go. That isolation, that lack of all the things which kept the beast locked inside you... that is what changed you so utterly."

"We're making this in the hope that it will help you understand what we're trying to do. You don't have to die out there alone, Oz. We want you back with us."

The voices plead in lilting tones that sound like no more to him than strange barking. He understands none of it. Instinct bids him to escape.

The red haired woman now appears in front of him. His motion stills. He stares up at her luminescent, illusory form. Something deep within the beast screams in a human voice, struggles to be free, to meet this vision before him.

"Oz, it's me, Willow. I... I'm so sorry. I never meant for... We're all here. Giles thinks maybe those closest to you might be able to connect with some memories. Oh... wait... he won't know who he is, will he?"

A tear falls from her eye and rolls down her cheek. For no reason the beast can comprehend, that tear causes him more pain than he has felt in a decade.

"The man we sent to hunt you has promised to capture you humanely. He's promised not to hurt you, but he has... his own way of doing things."

"We just want to give you a chance to help you find your way back to humanity. To help you get back to that part of you that was so special to me. To all of us."

Instinct tells him to run. The stranger is nearly upon him. But something pushes instinct aside.

"If this doesn't work... if you can't be captured without harm... it's agreed we'll let you be. And respect what may be your choice. In that case, this message will just be a way for me... for all of us... to say goodbye. And... I'm... I'm sorry."

She breaks down into sobbing. The image of Giles reappears next to that of Willow.

"We didn't want things to come to this. When we lost you to your feral side, and we... gave up on you... So much happened after that, it seemed for the best."

"We made a mistake, letting you go to live that way. It was wrong. We're asking you to give up that life. You don't have to die out there, alone. So we've gotten the best tracker we know and sent him to hunt you down and bring you back. He's a man you knew as Angel."

++++++++

Angel limps toward his camp. That had been a close one. If he'd fallen a foot to the left, one of those sticks would have gone through his heart. As it was, he just had a few gaping wounds to deal with. He hefts the tranquilizer gun, and hurries forward.

He hears Oz's roars at being trapped up ahead.

"Alright, alright, I hear you. That trap of yours took a lot out of me. But it's almost over now, Oz. They sent me to help save you, help get the boy out of the wilderness. But I knew more than anyone that it would take some work to pull the wilderness out of the boy. That has to be done one-on-one. If this trap's working like I planned, we're going to have that chance."

He hurries on toward his prey, the man he hopes to save from himself.

++++++++

Oz tugs once more at his bonds, unsuccessfully.

He hears Angel approaching him. Instinct tells him to fear. In this wilderness, one can expect no aid and the divisions are clear.

Hunter or hunted.

Man or beast.

He looked down at the glowing object holding him fast.

Choose. Or die.

++++++++

Angel comes into the clearing where he'd made his camp. Oz is nowhere in sight. He doesn't understand it. The talisman lies in the middle of the field, still glowing faintly.

"Oz? Oz?! How did..."

He looks closely at the talisman. The wires still extend from it to the tree... and they're still coiled around an object, holding it to the talisman. He reaches down to take a closer look, but he already has the awful feeling he knows what it is.

As his fingers touch the talisman, the flickering image of Giles appears once more.

"...don't have to die out there, alone..."

The wires loosen and retract back into the talisman. Giles' words continue to echo through the night. The object the talisman was holding falls to the forest floor with a soft thud.

"Oh no..." Angel looked down despairingly.

"...alone..."

"Man. No."

"...alone..."

Angel stared down at the object in front of him. It was Oz's hand. The wrist was bloody, raw. Chewed. Rather than be caught, Oz had gnawed off his own hand.

As Angel watched, the hand reverted entirely back to human form. Oz's blood seeped silently onto the forest floor.

"...alone..."

++++++++

A howl tears through the night sky. It is an utterly primal sound, the sound of an animal. Vital. Fierce. No man ever made a sound such as this. Oz stood at the edge of the cliff that he had begun the night upon. He howled again, trying to ignore the pain in his bloody wrist.

He wasn't always like this.

After a decade of struggling against his feral nature, the man he was found himself buried by it. Still, he fought back to reclaim his life, his mind, himself.

And lost.

Now that man is dead.

Long live the beast.

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