Chapter Seventy-five: Chaos

I jump to my feet, suddenly worried about what’s going on in the pack, remembering the words Fedori said to me. “Or you can go and find out what I’ve done whilst you’ve been here, with me.”

“Where have they come through?” I ask, getting right to the point so I can get all information, wanting to go and help fight. I start pacing in a small circle to keep my body doing something instead of going insane.

“They started on the South border. They were also on the West when I came to find you. I’m unsure since then, as I had come to find you as directed by Lukas.” She stops for a few seconds. “They’re winning, Aliana. There’s hundreds of them, and we’re finding it hard to understand how to get rid of them.

“What is it we’re fighting against?”

She looks at me, and I can tell even she’s unsure. She looks to the floor before answering. “I’ve no idea. I can tell they’re of my Father’s creation though. They’re pure darkness, as if they’re made from black clay. They seemingly just absorb anything you throw or hit them with. I’ve never seen these before in my life.” She finishes, shaking her head disappointed she’s unable to provide more information.

I stop pacing, stunned. I remember fighting something of that description just before I met Lukas. I shudder at the thought of having to fight one of those things again.

I decide there’s only one course of action that can be taken. Power has to fight power. I need to get down there and try and wash out the darkness.

I look at Nuria with resolve in my eyes. “Take me to where they came through first.”

She nods and grabs my wrist, and after taking a deep breath she instantly pulls me through the portal she’s quickly created. We come out of the other side after a few mere moments and I take a few moments to settle my stomach which was doing flips after that.

I see Nuria place her hands on her hips and see she’s out of breath. I give her a worried look as I’ve not seen her wear herself out like this before.

She notices I’m worrying about her and she responds with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry about me Wolfie. It just takes a bit of energy to bring people with me through the portal, in short bursts.”

I nod my head, understanding. I’ll make sure not to ask her to do that again unless it’s necessary.

I turn my body around from where I’m looking after noticing a strong smell of blood and look at the scene in front of me which brings me to my knees, choking a sob, unable to stop my hand from covering the gasp that escapes my mouth as my eyes roam the field in front of me.

There are so many lifeless wolves spread across the grass ahead of me, displaying that a massacre has happened here. I see, at the very least, around one-hundred of our precious wolves motionless on the ground, covered in blood, gashes, some even limbless.

I feel the bile rise in my throat as I see the blood stained grass. I scan the area for Ares or any of the other ranked wolves, doubting I’d miss any of them, but I don’t see Ares or any of the ranked wolves anywhere. I breath a small sigh of relief.

I try to mind-link Lukas but I can’t seem to get through to him, which continues to worry me and Athena. To take my mind away for it for now, I decide to try Blaine.
“Blaine, are you there? Is everyone ok? Where’s Lukas? Where are you?” I request.

“Luna, we’re on the West side, fighting off these things still. We could use any help you could give!” He relays, and I can tell he’s struggling to hold these creatures off. I debate whether it’s a good or bad sign he didn’t say anything about Lukas, but decide that he’s in need of help so decide to put any of those thoughts on hold until I reach them.

“I’m coming.”

I look to Nuria. “I’m going to shift. You catch your breath and look after yourself. You can reach us when you’re not exhausted.”

She nods her head, and places her hands on her knees, trying to regain her strength.

I close my eyes and start to shift, not giving a damn about my clothes. I hear them ripping and my bones popping quickly as the pure white fur sprouts from my skin. I take next to no time to turn into my beautiful wolf, the other half of me, Athena.

We shoot off into the direction of the on-going fight without a second look at my surroundings. I feel the wind on my face and see the storm clouds above signalling rain. It’s not long until I feel the first drops of rain on my snout. I run as if I’ve never ran before, finding that I’m much faster than I remember.

I reach what seems like the start of a battlefield. I see several wolves lying on the floor, the area looking very similar to what I had seen at the north border. I sniff the air and there’s an overbearing smell of blood. The blood of our wolves. I look around and see some of our wolves helping each other, as if they’ve just finished off a massive fight. I also smell hints of rotten flesh and death, similar to what I remember when I fought one of the beasts before joining the pack. The smell was not too far from my position, so I start to sprint as fast as I could towards it where I find several wolves trying their best to fight off a few of the dark creatures.

I see Blaine’s wolf Vince and Albion’s wolf Francis fighting off one of the things, whilst the rest of the dark beasts start retreating back West whilst our wolves are aiding each other where they can. The one our beta and Gamma are fighting looks extremely similar to the beast I saw before meeting Lukas. It looks small in size but it’s arms are not in any way symmetrical and looks very wonky. It is completely black with a slight glimmer as if it’s skin is moving as the rain patters on its skin. Its head isn’t quite circular and is much too big for its body. It doesn’t look like it’s movements are normal and after watching it for a few seconds it looks like it’s following a pattern, rather than being intuitive whilst fighting. The only issue with fighting something like this is it seems un-killable.

I charge right for it without a second thought to help Vince who was trying to lead it away from Francis who was struggling to keep up and who looks injured. As I get close enough, I leap and head-butt it directly in its chest which causes it to go flying a few meters away. I feel it’s slippery skin on my head and realise that it is mud-like.

It starts to head into the direction the other things were heading and so I chase after it, much to the dismay of Vince.

“Luna, don’t!” He mind-links me.

I stop and turn to him, but I ignore his pleas. “Go and help Francis. Get him and any others to Doctor Lowe.”

I cut off my mind-link as I know he was trying to reach me. I start to run towards the beast with the rain starting to pour heavily.

I have no exact goal in mind, but I know I want to try and figure these things out. From what I can tell, we weren’t able to take any of these down, they just entered pack lands, killing multiple wolves like a sea of black dread, then washed back out again as if they were never here, not leaving a trace.

I catch up to the one Vince and Francis was fighting, and I try and block it by creating a wall of water, using the water from the rain that was pouring. Since working on my powers with Nuria, I’ve found that I don’t need to make motions with my hands, I can instead just use my thoughts. I find that the creature slides across the grass to a halt, as if it doesn’t want to even try to go through it, and it instead takes a few steps back and tries to backtrack to go around the wall.

I squint my eyes. Is it afraid of the water?

I instead box it in four wall of water. I hold it there and I find that it doesn’t move at all. It doesn’t move, doesn’t try to escape. It just doesn’t move at all.

I move the four walls closer together, and as the water touches one of its arms, it screeches a horrible sound, as if it was in terrible pain. I continue to enclose it in the four walls, until the water walls are no more. I see the black mud-like substance melt, then evaporate into nothing.

I let the water walls down and find that the water is clear, the black mud completely gone.

I take a whiff of my surroundings and find I no longer can smell the stench of rotting flesh. I trot back towards Vince and Francis, eyeing the wounds on them both.

They see me looking at them. “We’re fine, thank you Luna.”

“Where’s Lukas?”

I hear Vince whimper and I feel my stomach drop.

“They took him, Luna. They took him then left.”