image [https://imgur.com/qnzBBn4.jpg]

Indena’s hands erupted with flame. Her Halloween orange eyes lit up bright along with her tattoos too.

She took on an attack pose, then waited for something to make a move.

“Get to cover!" She ordered. "If one of those monsters attacks you, scream.”

“Okay!”

There was a little room to take cover behind a small rock, so I hid back there.

Indena looked like she knew what she was doing. I remember seeing her move super quickly when fighting those monster before, so she must have been super strong.

The smaller wolves were moving in to flanking positions. Indena kept tabs on them.

The alpha wolf howled into the air and the subordinates charged at her!

POW!

Indena slammed her flaming fist into one, then swung the punch around, striking another square in the jaw!

Seven of them charged in all together, but Indena's speedy reflexes was able to dodge and punch out all of them!

Watching her fight was almost like watching a martial arts master at work! She had incredible speed and form!

More wolves were rushing in around her, attacking from both the sides and rear. The Alpha began to charge forward, leaping into the air and opening its jaw for a bite at her neck!

She quickly used a flame repulse to blast away the wolves, but the Alpha shrugged it off.

It reached Indena, ready to chomp, but Indena caught it by the jaws and held them apart. She had enough strength to hold the entire wolf up!

The Alpha’s sharp teeth dug right into her hands, passing through her fire and drawing blood. His claws were pawing her all over, cutting at her arms especially hard.

Magic users can create a barrier of energy around their bodies to protect them...but these monsters were strong enough to break through it.

The other wolves bolted in like lightning and struck her in the sides. They continued to drum at her in their lightning forms.

ZAP!

BZZT!

The shocks forced her to release the Alpha, then she concentrated a heavy amount of fire into creating a solid aura of flame over her fists. The wolves continued to strike at every angle, but she started punching them just before they'd make contact!

POW!

One was hit so hard that he reverted from his lightning bolt form back into a wolf. He tried to rise back up, but he dissipated into a haze of mana.

Indena kept trying to time her punches just right to hit the lightning wolves out of the air. She managed to get a few more. Most died quickly from the heavy flaming impacts.

The ones that didn’t go down bit at her legs and attempted to hold her in place.

Now the Alpha wolf leapt in and clamped its jaws down on her shoulder!

Indena punched into the alpha’s gut, trying to get him off her.

“Alright, two can play that shit!”

She opened her mouth and bit down on the Alpha’s shoulder!? What a feral counter play!

Fire burst from her mouth! Lightning burst from his!

Flame wafted into the wolf from Indena’s bite, and torrents of electricity entered her from his bite.

Both of them released each other and Indena used her fire to blast away the wolves that were biting her legs. Her flame aura mostly protected her from major damage, but she was bleeding.

She shot out fire bolts at each of the remaining lackey wolves, causing them to explode and die.

Now it was just the Alpha left, he looked pretty badly wounded, but so did Indena.

Both of them were dripping blood, it was looking like a mess of red all over!

“Hey, doggo…” she huffed out, hardly able to keep her stance, “Why don’t we call it here, eh? You lost your boys, and I'm pretty bored of this.”

The Alpha’s head tilted downward, as if he’d understood what she was saying and considered it. When his head went back up, his yellow eyes started to glow brighter.

He howled up into the sky! Dark clouds that had loomed over us this whole time shot lightning down all around.

More wolves spawned from the lightning.

“You gotta’ be kidding me…” Indena growled, clenching her fiery fist tightly. “Stupid dumb dog!”

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The fight continued. The longer it went, the more aggressive and weak Indena got. She was greatly outnumbered and all those injuries were taking a terrible toll on her.

She needed help, but I didn’t know how to get involved…but I had to protect her!

There was a tingle in the back of my mind, like a system was trying to activate automatically, but it was just booting up for the first time. Combat Protocols? Oh man! Those sure would help here!

I tried to dedicate more resources to unpacking the info, but…

-Combat Protocols.Zip has restricted access-

-Advisory : Prerequisites not met for full activation of First Law Protocol. Combat Protocol unpacking denied-

Dang it! The combat systems looked like they wouldn't unpack until the First Law Protocol prerequisites were met. What were the prerequisites? I checked the HELP menu…

-First Law Protocols will activate when a human being has come to mortal harm, or is in danger of such.-

-Requirements Remaining for full activation : Minor proficiency in any form of martial arts.-

Uhg! What did it want from me, to be a black belt?! Man, to have your own body literally tell you that you weren't good at something really hits a different cord…Uncle was totally right...

No way could I have fought anything without the combat protocols…but maybe, I didn’t have too.

I started thinking about what that rabbit did when that giant bird was about to eat him. His fur stuck up and he let out a high pitch screech that scared it off. That little guy scared off the bigger guy, so maybe I could do the same?

I didn’t have fur, and I couldn’t stick my hair up on ends…maybe Samael could scare the wolves? He’s a snake. Everything’s scared of snakes for some reason…nah, he’s too little.

Wait, I had wings. Big wings too. If I flared those out, the wolves might get startled. But what if that didn’t work? I’d need an extra layer of fright to boost my fear levels.

It was pretty dark from the cloud cover, maybe light would work. I could make myself glow with stardust. I practiced making my skin glow in the dark one time and it looked pretty cool.

That settled it. I’d light myself up and flare my wings out! They weren’t demons, but who wouldn’t be afraid of a glowing angel?

I climbed to the top of the rock, balancing daintily on the very summit of this small boulder. All eyes were on me now.

“Yalda, what are you doing?!” Indena cried out in shock.

I didn’t answer. My wings were about to do the talking.

FLOOSH!

My wings parted the air, stretching as far as they could go. The moment they hit the climactic showcase of this display, I struck a pose reminiscent of a ballerina.

Stardust energy flowed through my veins, collecting just under my skin and causing it to light up bright. It was such a fantastic glow, rays of light were peeking through me.

Just as hoped, everyone was stunned. The wolves looked frightened, backing away from me.

Even Indena was awestruck, but played along with her own magic…

Fire erupted around me. My whole body was twinkling with stardust, and lighting up with flame.

I was durable enough to take some heat, but my internal thermometer was telling me that the fire wasn't hot. That must have been some sort of illusion ability Indena had.

All of the wolves freaked out, then rushed away…all but the alpha.

He coward in place, scrunching up and having his fur stick up on end. But then he stepped forward and tilted his head down, putting his tail between his legs.

What was he doing? It looked silly.

Indena let up on her magical fire, then stepped back to me.

“I’m starting to see why you’re so important,” she told me. “You’re an angel, aren’t you? I had a feeling…”

“Well, actually…” I retracted my wings, then stepped down from the rock, “I’m an Exceed. A synthetic angel.”

“Whatever you are, you just put the fear of God in that thing.” She gestured to the wolf. “See what he’s doing? That means he respects you.”

Oh, really? I got a monster wolf's respect? Hey, that was pretty cool.

All of the other little wolves started to show back up, then they also did the same as the Alpha. One of them even came up to me and started whining.

“What’s the matter, little guy?”

He was super tiny compared to the rest. Maybe he was a pup? I leaned down and started petting him.

Once the Alpha saw what I was doing, he came over and growled at the little one, getting him to stop whining.

“It’s okay.” I told the alpha. “I don’t mind petting him.”

The Alpha looked at me like he understood what I was saying, but still gave a nasty snarl to the little one. Then he turned around and took his place at the head of the pack.

Once I gave the little one a few more good pets, he went back to the group. The Alpha made sure the little one was placed behind him.

Since things were calm for a second, I did a bit of a bio scan on the wolves. Turns out, Alpha was a female! Maybe the pup was her son.

The HELP menu was blinking on my hot bar. I opened it up and saw a new tab called Monster Compendium. This tab was retroactively documenting all the monsters I was seeing. Since I scanned the wolves, it was giving me tons of info on them.

The Alpha howled into the air, then she looked at Indena. Another monster wolf came by and started licking Indena’s wounds, at least the ones not covered up by clothing.

Her visible wounds started to close up. I could sense that there was some mana being transferred onto her cuts, it must have been healing her. Once there wasn’t anything left that it could see, the wolf went back to its position in the pack.

Was this how real wolves acted, or were these guys really smart? I guess I shouldn’t be comparing animals to monsters. They probably were completely different, only sharing appearance and some behavior.

The pack turned and started to move up the hill, then they all transformed into bolts of energy and radiated away into the sky.

“Nice work, you saved my…” She fell down to the ground, landing on her hands and knees. “Uhg…”

Most of her visible wounds were healed up, but she was still in bad shape. She needed more proper healing, or I'm not sure she'd make it much longer.