Crowley was ready as he stared out. Was it going to be another wave of the lower-tier gangs out here to get them, or would the Phoenix Gang feel like they had done enough? There was always a limit to wearing a group down.
As they successfully would defend from more and more attacks, the morale of the Howlers would grow with strength as they would start to believe they could actually win the fight. It was the perfect time, just now as the public were starting to feel safe, to crush their morale.
‘It looks like I was right,’ Crowley thought, looking ahead. ‘This is the turn in the fight, where we really need to start to show our might.’
A habit of Crowley was his rhyming schemes; it was something that he did unconsciously when he was nervous. It was why when he was teaching the AFA students just before the special lessons he would go into rhyme.
Seeing the army of those in dark red clothing, walking down the street was worrying. There was a group of what looked like 25. It was clearly not the whole of the Phoenix Gang, which was worrying Crowley even more.
‘Are the other areas being attacked, possibly harder than what we will face here?’ Crowley thought, as he stretched out his hands; in doing so, two black feathers could be seen.
The group that had been walking towards them started to charge ahead. Some of them grew tails out of their behinds that started to flame up; others had claws grow out from their knuckles.
They looked like pieces of steel but even they ignited with heat. In a tier 1 gang, one of the Kings, nearly every member of the gang was an Altered, and in the case of the Phoenix Gang, nearly all of them had flame properties.
Crowley hurled the feathers at one of the members. This time the gang member flipped in the air over it, while the other had been hit on the shoulder. He had been hurt but hadn’t gone flying over.
Instead, he pulled out the tip of the feather, and in his hand, the feather had burned and ignited on the spot.
The fire from behind Crowley continued from the general public, but they were mostly able to avoid or hit away the arrows.
Seeing as nothing was working, there was only one choice, Crowley would have to go in hand to hand. Extending his hands out, his two large black wings had appeared. He took a step forward and swept right towards one of the gang members.
He swung his hand, which was now shaped like a bird’s claw. It bashed against the ignited claw, but the sheer power had caused the man to nearly collapse onto the ground.
Right there and then another tried to twist and whack Crowley with their flaming tail. With his other hand, he had caught it and gripped on tightly.
“Idiot, do you think you can hold onto fire!” The man shouted.
The flames grew right onto his hand, and a wave of heat hit him in the face, but Crowley didn’t let go.
“If it’s only for a short while and weak flames like this!” Crowley then lifted the man by the tail and hurled him to the side. The others got out of the way in time which meant his body continued to fly outward until it had crashed into a light pole, bending it.
The others were hesitant at this point; they could see that Crowley had a lot of power. He was skilled at fighting as well and wasn’t your typical Altered.
As he was looking for his next opponent, a bowling ball-sized fireball came shooting out. When looking at it, oddly it wasn’t just made of fire, but looked more like a scrap of metal that was covered in fire.
Crowley closed his wing, but when it hit him, it exploded into flames and sent Crowley back until he fell over on his back.
With his other wing on the floor, he quickly propped himself up, but looking at the wing that had been hit. The feathers were ruffled, scorched, and part of the inner muscles could be seen.
It was stinging with pain, but Crowley didn’t let it show on his face.
“You heard the boss, he knew this one was strong, so he told me to deal with this one.” The voice was loud and booming and walking through at the back of the rest of the group.
Was a large man, with a big belly; his red coat could hardly fit on him, only going around his shoulders but still showing the giant potbelly. This was one of the main members of the Phoenix Gang, the man known as Glutton.
Right then, Glutton moved to one of the cars, and he opened his mouth. It opened extremely wide as if his jaw was detached, and his teeth had changed into hundreds of small razor-sharp objects.
When he bit down on the car, it had next to no resistance at all, and there were melting marks of metal by the edges of where he bit.
Glutton was seen chewing the large piece of metal for a while, and then, he spat out a large ball of flames again. The ball of flame and metal was larger than what he had bitten, and just like before it was coming right at Crowley.
He went to move to the side, but there were four Phoenix Gang members there ready to stop him and get in his way. They looked at him with smiles until fists came flying out, hitting them away.
Crowley was able to move to the side and avoid the attack just in time. The flames continued and hit the cars bursting. The heat was felt by those standing at the top.
“Get off and retreat back!” Crowley shouted and ordered to the civilians, but he noticed something; the Howlers members that were on standby, they weren’t currently there.
That was because they were now fighting with the other Phoenix Gang members. All twenty of them had come out with weapons or transforming, doing their best to fight against them.
“Let us deal with these guys!” Park said as he knocked the hand away of a claw and then punched the attacker right in the face. “You, take out the flaming spitting giant!”
Although the Howlers members might have been doing okay now, Crowley knew they wouldn’t last. Not everyone in the Howlers was Altered like that in the Phoenix Gang, and the Phoenix Gang members were skilled as well.
‘I was trying to deal with everything myself, but with this big guy that’s quite impossible. I will have to rely on them and try to make this quick,’ Crowley thought as he stretched his wings out again.
“During my time, I never thought I would be going against one of the core members of the Phoenix Gang, but you never know what life throws your way.”
**** ****