After Austin and Innu’s match concerning the ownership of the Altered solution, Kai told everyone to prepare themselves for something big to occur. His choice of words had been pretty vague, yet the fact that Olivia would accompany them made his fellow gang members suspect that there would be a fight soon.
As to who their enemy was going to be, nobody questioned it. They all trusted in the blonde teenager’s judgement, so each one spent the next days training. Marie continued her daily training with the variety of weapons, while Innu had started to incorporate his two new axes into his fighting style.
Austin was undoubtedly the one who had it the hardest though. After all, becoming an Altered didn’t really come with an instruction. In a way, it was similar to what the two Beta Werewolves had gone through, yet in his case, the big teenager had yet to find out just what kind of Altered he was.
One night, Kai stood on the roof of a restaurant. It was around three floors high, and the wind was blowing his hair, as the backdrop of a crescent moon was behind him.
‘A few more days and we should be ready to take them on. Austin is getting the hang of his powers, and he got relatively lucky with the mystery solution. Once we take care of our local problem, we can look into taking over the other Tier-3 towns in the vicinity.
‘I know I shouldn't rush it, but Austin’s power just has me shaking with excitement. Still, I need to keep in mind that gang wars are a different ballpark than a straight-up fight. Gang wars require funds, and after our last purchase, we’re lacking in that area.
‘We need to build up our finances and power to be able to protect our increased influence. Taking over an area doesn’t mean a thing, if we’re unable to protect it.’
While the others had been busy training, the Werewolf had been preparing their next step by snooping around. He had also asked Olivia and her people to complete a certain task for him. To pass on what they heard about other gangs. There was one group that was of significant size, and that was the mayor.
Gary’s blatant disrespect during the meeting of the mid-sized gangs had already made the Howlers into a public enemy. However, since the Howlers had established themselves as the most powerful faction by taking out the Underdogs, the others had kept to their territories. Of course, they all understood that this peace had an expiration date, so it hadn’t taken Ben Clove a lot of convincing to get them all to agree to form into one large alliance to stay relevant.
On the surface, it looked like they were all equal, but in reality, the ones calling the shots were the Rising Dragons. They had been working for the mayor before the change in the status quo, so he naturally trusted them the most. There wasn’t much the other gangs could do about it, except to curse their situation.
‘If possible, it would be for the best if I can get them to fight amongst themselves by having one or more gangs defect to our side. Since Gary left Olivia alive and her gang is thriving, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince them. As for how much we can trust them… well, I’ll cross that bridge once we get to it, but first I need to find out what has made the mayor so confident.’ Kai thought to himself as he continued to track after this night’s prey.
Outside the chinese takeaway, there were gang members who were already lightly intoxicated and in the midst of discussing a seemingly important event.
‘It's a good thing that Gary..mad an adjustment to the pack rules. Because I’m going to need it.’
Jumping off from the third floor, the Werewolf’s body shifted into a much smaller form. Rather than growing in size, his bones became more compact, and fur began covering his entire body.
When he landed, his body was no longer that of a human’s, but that of a grey coloured wolf’s.
This was one of the advantages and differences in Kai’s Werewolf type. His Unique Class wasn’t called the Grey Werewolf Shapeshifter for nothing.
Like an obsessed man, he had spent every free moment to learn how to use those newly granted powers to the point he felt that he had grasped complete control over his transformations.
This form was far more suited to reconnaissance, especially since he looked not too different from a normal dog. His senses were even sharper in his animalistic form, allowing him to listen in from a distance without making the gang members suspicious.
Even if someone were to see him, who could turn around and people would think he was a simple dog, and nine times out of ten, even if they saw his face it looked like most didn’t know what a wolf looked like and they would just assume that he was a husky or some type of dog they hadn’t seen before. It was rare for humans to interact with wolves in the first place, at least in the town of slough.
“Did you come here?” One of them asked. “Rizer asked us all to get ready to move, and to keep track of the Howlers.”
“Oh?” The other replied with a hiccup. “I’m guessing this has something to do with that meeting that the boss said they had, right?”
“Yeah, from what I hear, the alliance has been asked to come back together again. Based on the actions and the word from the other gangs, it looks like the Mayor is wanting to make her move.”
“Move, against the Howlers… but they took out the Underdogs, they have an Altered as well. There’s no way we can take them on.”
The man flicked his cigarette into the middle of the road and let out a huge puff.
“Word is, the Mayor managed to get his hands on a pretty strong Altered solution himself, and it's enough for the boss to believe we have a chance of getting rid of them. If we get rid of the Howlers, then we own a pretty big pie of Slough. Our alliance will be the one who has all the say, and with the mayor we can rise up. Nothing is stopping us now.”
The men continued to chat for a while, but it was useless information, what Kai needed was a date and time. He continued following them, taking his time… until the perfect opportunity presented itself.
Going down the alleyway, one of the men seemed quite drunk, he was wobbly on his feet and decided to take a leak. As he was letting out relief of his fresh air, he noticed something to his right.
“Oh… F*ck, that’s a huge wild dog, I need to hurry up and finish this.” The man said as he shook his body to let out the last few droplets, but as he looked down with his pants partly down, a hand grabbed the back of his head and slammed him into the wall.
Blood dripped from his nose and forehead as his vision blurred. His hair was pulled back, but he could see what looked like a blonde teenager.
“You scream, you die. You call for the others, you die. You speak before I tell you to, you die.” Kai whispered. The man was about to say something but before he could Kai grabbed his head and slammed it against the wall again.
“I didn’t give you permission yet. Just nod if you understand.”
The man was incredibly shaken, but out of fear he nodded.
“Good, I’m going to need some answers from you.”
The man's lips turned out to be incredibly close, it seemed like these men weren't too loyal to their gang, at least not for such simple information as where a meeting would take place.
“Please…will you let me go?” The man whimpered.
“I’m sorry, but no one can know that I know about this. I can't trust someone as loose as you.” Kai said as his whole head started to transform and he bit down on the man’s neck.
Knowing that while Gary was away that the gang would have to use violence, and possibly go as far as killing someone. Gary had changed the pack rules. Olvia was trust worthy enough by now, at least to the point where he trusted Kai looking over her. The one thing Gary didn’t want was for them to suffer because of his rules.
The gang member died a few moments later. Back in his wolf form, Kai let out a few barks before he started to dig in. The others, hearing the commotion, followed the noise, where they found him with blood all over its mouth.
“That f*king street dog killed Umar!” One of the men shouted as he discovered the corpse. “Kill the damn dog!”
Now that they had seen the scene of the crime, and believed it was done by an animal, Kai turned tail and ran away, too fast for the intoxicated gang members to even attempt to catch up.
‘A big meeting, huh? Now should we strike them all at once, or do so before they have a chance to gather?’
*****
Support my Kickstarter: My Werewolf System/ Shrine. 110 Percent funded
If you guys didn't know, I and owner Jin started Shrine, trying to create a platform for Western artists to create content in the Manga style.
We have launched our first Kickstarter which allows access to a physical volume book with all Shrine series first chapters. Which includes a physical version of the first chapter of My Werewolf System.
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