When Tom opened his eyes, he found himself looking at a bright white light.
“What happened? Where are we?” Tom asked, looking around to see Kai. “Where is Gary?”
“Who knows?” Innu shrugged his shoulders. “We followed you hoping to find him, but instead we nearly lost our lives. Do you have any idea how often I nearly died today?!”
On further inspection, Tom realised that he and his schoolmates were in what looked like a police station. He could see several criminals coming in and out, and people in uniform busy with work, despite the late hour.
Sitting next to him was Innu, Marie, and Xin. Innu looked quite pissed as he recalled his experience, but he seemed to know that blaming Tom wouldn’t do anything. Marie was still recovering from her shock and someone seemed to have given her some hot chocolate to calm her nerves. Xin seemed nervous as she looked down and fiddled with her hands, making sure not to make eye contact with anyone.
A little while later, Kai came out from one of the offices.
“Good news, everyone. We’re free to go home, and the police are even nice enough to give us a lift since it’s so late. Probably also to avoid us meeting with whatever was in the park.”
“Wait, so we don’t all have to give reports on what happened?” Xin asked, looking relieved.
“I said I would handle it, didn’t I? Unless you feel it’s your civil duty to tell them another version of the same thing I just did, let’s get going. I don’t know about you, but I could use some rest. If we wake up and still remember what happened today, then we will know it wasn’t a crazy dream.” Kai answered.
The others were thankful they could finally go home, Tom was still worried, but he knew it would be suicide to enter the forest on his own. He didn’t even know if Gary and the other Omega wolf would still be out there.
‘Gary please be safe.’
“By the way, why was I asleep?” Tom asked. “And why does my head hurt?”
The others just looked at Xin, with a grin on their faces, letting her be the one to explain it.
——
In the forest, a distance away from the four adults, another fight was taking place. The young Altered Hunter had no idea what was going on, on his partner’s side, yet he lacked the time to worry about him, for he needed to concentrate on the opponent in front of him.
Once again, the brown Werewolf swiped at the young Altered Hunter’s head. He rolled to the side causing the blow to miss and hit the tree instead. Large deep claw marks were left behind, shredding a huge chunk of the tree.
‘It has great strength. If that thing hits me in the head I’m done for.’ Still, the young Altered Hunter remained level headed, at every opportunity that presented itself he would hit the Werewolf with his electrified batons, stunning it for a while as the electric power went to work.
‘Just how many hits can this Altered take? That much electricity should have been enough to even knock an elephant out by now. Does it have some special kind of resistance or is it just healing this fast?’ The young Altered Hunter wondered.
‘Whatever the case, I can tell that its movements are slowing down with each hit. If I keep hitting it with the electric batons, then I can change to the sword and finish it off. You will become my first ever Altered kill, allowing me to get on my way to my first star!’
Nearly all of the Werewolf’s strikes were missing the Altered Hunter by the skin of his teeth, yet once in a while he managed to get one in. Unfortunately for the creature, his attacks weren’t strong enough to pierce through the special Altered Hunter armour.
Nevertheless, each hit served as a grim reminder of the powerful strength of his foe. The Altered Hunter had no clue how long they had been fighting for, it felt like a long time, and that was when he started to notice something.
‘It… is getting smaller!’ The Altered Hunter realised. Dodging another hit, he used both electrified batons at the same time to shock its back. The beast let out another scream, only this time, rather than a beast’s growl, what came out resembled a normal human voice in agony.
‘I’m right! As the Altered’s getting weaker, it must be reverting back!’
Seeing how the Werewolf was slowing down, and reverting even, the Altered Hunter believed this to be his chance. He was also worried that his partner had yet to appear. Either he was having a much harder time or something unexpected had happened.
The movements of the brown Werewolf were sluggish and slow by now, making it easier for the Altered Hunter to avoid its swing. Using both of the batons, he consecutively started to hit the beast, on its arms, on its chest, and legs all over.
In front of the Altered Hunters’ very eyes, the Werewolf began to shrink to the point that the two of them were on the same eye level. The patch of green fur from the top of its head had also started to spread out until, finally, one could see human skin underneath.
‘I thought this might have been a real monster for a second, but now I know that there really is a human underneath this abomination. I can do this!’ The Altered Hunter steeled his resolve, charging in and swinging out its baton towards the Werewolf’s face.
One baton hit its large snout, and its face flung to the side. The large teeth started to revert, and the same happened to the snout. The Altered Hunter didn’t stop there, his other baton hit it from the other side as well, making the snout shrink even more.
‘Third time’s the charm!’ The Altered Hunter thought, swinging both batons towards the head again, landing a successful hit against his target. He was starting to see a human face underneath it all, but at that moment, the Werewolf let out a final desperate attack, his claw slicing the mask off of the Altered Hunter.
With that the creature fell to the ground completely exhausted, fully reverting to its human form.
‘Sh*t, he broke my mask! … Well, it won’t matter. He’s going to die anyway, so who cares if he sees my face now.’ The Altered Hunter tried to calm himself down, making a mental note to bring a replacement mask on his next hunt.
It had been a tough fight, and in a way the young Altered Hunter had been lucky that his target had already been injured and hurt from fighting the other Werewolf before. If that wasn’t the case, the Altered Hunter wasn’t sure if the outcome of their duel would have been the same.
Placing the baton’s away, he pulled out a short sword holding it in one hand. He carefully used the weapon to turn the human body over, wishing to imprint the face of his first kill into his mind.
‘… G-Gary?!’