It was an all too familiar sensation for Gary who had been on the receiving end of those electrified batons. However, the pain wasn’t quite as bad as he remembered, which he took as a good sign of him having improved. Nevertheless, the electricity running through his body caused his movement to be sluggish.
Gritting his teeth, he wanted to lash out at whoever had attacked him, though before he got the chance, the Werewolf felt multiple sharp objects attempt to pierce his back. Fortunately, he had been smart enough to use Controlled Transformation on his back the moment he had been attacked, though he still suffered the after effect of the shock.
[-1 HP]
[-1 HP]
[-1 HP]
The amount of damage this attack did was negligible, especially since he had increased his Health pool recently. However, there was one thing worrying him. Though he did not receive a system notification, the Werewolf noticed that his Energy was dropping as well, which was a first for him.
Gary swung his arm as he planned to hit the gang member with the baton… yet there was nobody behind him.
‘Huh?’
That's when he noticed that the attack didn’t come from his immediate vicinity, instead there were numerous gang members atop the piles of garbage, holding crossbows. Gary had no idea where they had procured those weapons from, but it didn’t matter. The problematic thing was that he could clearly see that the bolts had a slightly blue glow to them.
‘Why are those guys seemingly better armed than the Altered Hunters?!’
While the teenager was making up his mind whether he should take those guys out first, or continue going for Damion, he happened to see that more gang members were pulling out weapons. Some were holding the strange batons, but others had swords, spears and axes, none of which had sharp edges, but all of which were producing sparks.
Worst of all, he was in the very middle of an area that had been cleared. He felt like a gladiator in the middle of an arena, with no clear way out, other than fighting.
‘All of them are using Altered hunting weapons…’ Gary realised, aware that the one who had ended up trapped turned out to be him, rather than Damion. Eventually, reaching behind him, Gary pulled out a round object with four sharp prodding ends that had a small part of blood on them. The blue light was starting to fade.
“I’m not sure whether to call you brave… or simply stupid? I knew that you Howlers would try to take me out, so naturally I would prepare something for you, yet you still chose to come by yourself?!” Damion shouted, shaking his head in disappointment. “Seriously, has that Alterification process fried your brain?”
The man with the large poles started to run in, thrusting them like spears at Gary. He hadn't removed all the strange bolts in his back, but their usefulness seemed to have faded already.
Immediately, those with the crossbows started to fire, and using Controlled Transformation on his legs, Gary ran around the place avoiding all the bolts.
However, he soon noticed the problem with fighting in the junkyard, there was little to no room for him to run or hide as he had already been surrounded by the pole users. They all thrust towards him, and the only thing he could do was whack the pole away. Unfortunately, the moment he touched them, he felt the shock course through his body again.
‘Those things are worse than the batons! With how long they are, I can’t reach them either!’
Trying to change tactic, Gary wanted to charge forward and ignore the pain, at least taking one of them out, but he soon felt that his back had been hit by three more of the electrical sparks, zapping his body even more.
Since they weren't sharp objects, Gary wasn't losing a lot of Health, but the worrisome part was the Energy. He was down to less than half.
[122/300 Energy]
‘This is the first fight where I'm losing more Energy than actual Health! I don’t have any meat on me… should I try to bite down on one of them? No, what if I create another Billy…’
Now that his movements had been slowed as well, finally the crossbow users were able to shoot even more of the special bolts into him. Gary wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but the shocks he was receiving from these weapons seemed to be more powerful than the Altered hunters’ batons.
‘They must have spent so much money on these things…and to not get weapons that actually do damage…what is he..’
“You bastard took away one of my most prized possession! Don't you think you should give me something in return? There is bringing back Kirk, but you might prove to be a useful replacement. There are rumours that there is a way to extract the Altered DNA from an Altered and place it into someone else. Of course, it kills them in the process, but that would just be a win-win for me.” Damion explained with a sinister smile on his face.
Now it made sense. So that was why he had decided to purchase such weapons. His plan had always been to capture Gary alive.
‘Too bad for you that I'm not really an Altered.’ Gary thought to himself as he activated the one thing he believed might get him out of this situation.
[Skill activated Full Transformation]
[-20 Energy]
[Transformation has begun]
The Werewolf’s Energy had fallen to below 100, so he had to use the skill now while he still could. With his body at its strongest he held on to the poles. He was sure that they couldn’t stay electrified the whole time, there would have to be a resting period for them to charge up again. It seemed like they were acting in groups to cover up that weakness.
It was in that brief second when the groups were changing that Gary held onto two of the poles. He was still being electrocuted, but bearing through the pain, he gripped do to the poles so tightly and used all his strength until they snapped in half.
‘I’ll kill you!’ Gary thought looking at Damon, and prepared to charge forward, chucking the two pole users off to the side. The others couldn't keep up with the transformer teenager’s speed.
However, Damion still looked unafraid, still not moving away from the coach that was behind him. It was then that ten more gang members appeared from behind the heaps of trash. Each of them holding those special crossbows.
They fired straight ahead and perfectly hit Gary, with each hit his movements slowed, but the Werewolf continued to head forward, by now the others were also able to reload their weapons. They, too, continued to fire now.
Slowly, the teenager’s steps lessened and something dangerous had happened. His mask had fallen off during his transformation and he was looking at an terrible system notification.
[Your Energy is now extremely low]
[Full Transformation cancelled]
[Please replenish your Energy by consuming meat]
Gary was turning back to a human, and he didn't have the mask on his face. His body was still receiving shock after shock, until eventually.
[Your Energy has been depleted!]
[Body entering conservation mode]
His vision started to fade, as he reached out his hand, towards Damion, with a surprised look on his face that soon turned into a large grin.
“It looks like today is a great day, after all. … who would have thought you would come to me on your own, Greeny?”
*****
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