A little before, Gary had gone into his Full Transformation, the rest of the Howlers were now dealing with another problem. Despite them having the larger force, the Grey Elephant members were losing out, now that Olivia had arrived with her Pincer gang members.
If it was just the Pincers on their own against those Grey Elephant members, then the small-time gang would have lost out. Fortunately, the Howlers had quality members to help out, and then there was Olivia herself. If she was someone to be feared before, there was even more reason now.
On top of that, the Cheetah Squad who were a part of the Underdogs were also dealing with the Grey Elephants. In the end, it was almost as if the Grey Elephants were the ones that were being pressured by two strong forces, and with their leader having run off somewhere, the morale of the group wasn't particularly high.
This had led most of the Grey Elephant members to admit defeat, knowing full what the outcome would be like at the other end. Now, though, the Cheetah Squad were facing off against Olivia and the rest of the Howlers.
“We have to be careful!” Kai shouted towards the others. “Those guys are skilled enough to not drag down an Altered, so don't think of them as just another one of those regular Joes!”
With Kai, Innu, Austin, Marie and Olivia, there were five of them to go up against the five elite gang members, and running towards each other, it looked like everyone was ready for a clash.
“Hey, you seriously want me to take out one of them on my own?!” Marie shouted, but the others seemed too preoccupied to reply. All of them were engaged in their own combat, one of the cheetah squad members, a bald man with scars all over his face, looked towards Marie.
Her hands were shaking a little as she held onto her blades. She had been doing okay so far, and the real life situations had allowed her to improve quickly. Still, there was a vast difference to what she was about to do and what she had been doing so far.
During the fight, she had simply been trying to survive. Hurting those close to her, stalling until someone else to deal with the person, but now with a one on one situation. It wasn't possible for her to do things this way.
‘Damn it, how could the others forget about me?’ Marie thought, almost welling up, feeling as if she was on the verge of tears. ‘Damn you, Kyle, ever since you saw that bastard, it’s like your mind is too busy to notice the things right in front of you!’
“I see you are a person who uses weapons as well.” The bald man said with a smile. Flicking his arms out, two small pocket blades appeared. They were smaller than what Marie used, but the man's confidence was making her even more afraid, and it was the first time that she would be going up against someone else who was using a similar set of weapons as hers.
The bald man didn't hesitate as he thrust the blade towards her. Quickly, Marie stepped back avoiding the first attack. However, her opponent didn’t stop there. Having noticed the lack of confidence in the teenage girl, he went after Marie, trying to stab her once more. She continued to back away, not seeing any chance to retaliate.
‘He's slower than Kyle’s kicks, maybe I can do something.’ She thought as she went in to slash towards the arm that tried to attack her, but as she did, she pulled back and moved away once again from another strike.
‘What…what is wrong with me… I hesitated.’ Her hands were still shaking holding the weapon, and it was then that she realised why she was so frightened. There was one important lesson that had been ingrained into her. It had done her well so far but now going up against another person who was using a blade and didn't care about killing her, it was causing her legs to go weak.
The best time to attack was when someone was attacking, and that was including herself. The timing was perfect, but she was off by a little. The next second, an image of the blade piercing her stomach and her life flashing before her eyes appeared in her head.
Once again, being distracted, the bald man thrust the two little pocket knives one after another. There was no longer any opening as Marie avoided each strike, one after the other. It was all she was able to do.
‘Am I imagining things, or is he getting faster?’ Marie thought in a panic.
Unfortunately, it was not just in her head. The man was indeed getting faster, having treated the earlier attacks as warm up. It was then, while avoiding the hits, that Marie felt something on her back leg, yet it was too late. The teenage girl tripped over one of the many dead bodies that were around.
Now with nowhere else to run, it looked like the images in her head from before were going to come true. Swinging her blade out now with no other choice, she was hoping that it would either hit the blade or hit the man first, but he had completely avoided the slash, pulling back at the right time, and continued to go forward.
“Don't worry, I won't make it painful!” The man promised her. The next second though, and his whole body seemed to light up slightly, it shook out of control and the weapons dropped from his hand. After that, two more whacks were heard, hitting the man on the back of the head, causing him to collapse on the ground.
When looking up, Marie thought that maybe Kai had come to his senses and had helped her out, but instead she saw the stranger in his full black mask.
‘The Altered Hunter! Didn’t he leave?’ Marie realised, but soon felt like she should say something.
“T-thank you for saving me.”
The truth was, Blake had indeed decided to leave the fight. It wasn't his fight to get involved in, and even though there was at least one Altered present with Kirk, it wasn't the right time to hunt him with so many people. It wasn’t how Altered Hunters were trained to do things.
Regardless, Blake did want to stay and watch how everything would play out, and in doing so, he could see Marie, a school girl that he recognised as someone who went to the same school as him, was in trouble. In the end, he couldn't help himself but to quickly get involved once again.
Seeing that she was fine, the Altered Hunter had run off again. Marie took the time to see how the others were doing. Looking at her fellow Howler members, they were pretty banged up. Austin, was bleeding from the top of his head, sitting on the ground huffing and panting, but he had no opponent in front of him.
Innu looked to be in slightly better condition, but when trying to walk forward he seemingly collapsed on the ground. The adrenaline that had kept him in the fight so far had escaped his body.
Then there was Kai. He was standing, but it looked like he could barely hold on. Even from behind, she could tell that his body was badly hurt. He resembled a boxer on wobbly legs. Taking a step forward, he was wobbling, even swaying. The fox mask was still on his face, but part of it had cracked.
‘Is Kyle losing? I have to help!’ Marie thought, since she saw that the others were in no condition to.
Just as she had got up off the ground, though, Gary let out his loud howl. That's when everyone looked over in the direction of the fight, to see the large brown furred wolf.
Olivia, who had been fighting with her opponent so far, who was a little better than the others, smiled.
‘This strength… I’ve never felt like this before.’ Throwing out her whip, it had wrapped around the man’s leg. She pulled on it, trying to cause the man to fall, but instead he had let the momentum take him in, and he had jumped trying to spin himself while delivering a kick. It was then that Olivia knew that she had gotten stronger.
Grabbing onto his leg, she started squeezing onto it hard, making the Cheetah Squad member scream in pain. The Lady Boss then threw him to the ground, and stepped right on his chest. Swinging her whip constantly hitting the person as much as she could.
Seeing his friend getting beaten, the one that was dealing with Kai, had decided to help. Olivia stopped her attack, charged forward, and avoided the punch, before grabbing the other gang member’s face and slamming it onto the ground as well.
She had the power of the Anti-Altered weapon, on top of her natural increased strength from being a Werewolf, and now she was receiving another boost, and it was thanks to Gary.
As she looked up, she looked towards Kai and gave him a condescending smile.
‘She’s…become so strong… Gary, what did you do to her? Did you turn her, like in those books? If that's the case… can you do the same to me?’ Kai thought as he looked at Gary's full Werewolf form.
*****
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