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Forces of Fables
Hello, Pride

Hello, Pride

“Are you bleeding Sloth?”, asked a raspy feminine voice. Betty stared at her monitor, concerned. What had first seemed like an easy payday was turning out to be quite the task.

Ron let a slow sigh escape before responding.

“For sure”, came the drooling response. Betty’s hand shot for her cigarette box, but then she quickly withdrew it. She was beginning to get anxious, for Ron had never needed any form other than Sloth.

“Have you made it bleed yet?”, asked Betty.

“Have you managed to leave your cancer sticks alone?”, asked Ron.

“Actually, I have!”, she yelled through the mic. Nothing but silence came from Ron.

“I guess there is a first for everything. Well, I can tell you one thing, it ain’t no ‘mystical mastiff’. Betty, I think it’s a werewolf.”, grunted Sloth.

Betty’s face turned white.

“Where are you Sloth?”, she asked as quiet as a mouse. Ron thought carefully, but slowly.

“I’ve run him in a near U-turn from our original position. I wonder where he could be?”, asked Ron, his slothen thoughts miles behind Betty’s racing mind.

“Get back here right now”, Betty said quietly through her mic. Her finger trembled as she released her mouse. She vainly attempted to breath slowly and deeply.

She lowered herself slowly to the floor, even as her limbs shivered from goosebumps. She had retired from the business many years ago, but the discovery of Ron and the needs of her grandchildren had forced her to return. She crawled gracefully towards the driver’s seat, but she stopped before she would be visible. That’s when she knew, the werewolf would be looking through the driver side window. It would let its prey come into its reach, then its impossibly strong paw would shatter the window, and its claws would sink into her. Her fragile form would be yanked through the partially broken window, and right after she was done being impaled by shards of glass, she would be ripped apart by a force of nature.

She realized that Ron was her only chance, but Sloth was so slow. She kept no weapons in her van, and she began to profusely regret her own policy.

“It's not often I get impatient with the elderly, but if you don’t crawl your old ass out, I’m going to come in”, boomed a dark, inhuman voice. In the same moment, well over a mile away, Sloth realized that Betty was worried because the werewolf could be heading for her.

Betty was shaken for only a second before she focused all her years of experience into creating a solution.

The chubby 13-year-old boy, who had abnormally large arms and a pot belly closed his eyes. The threshold wasn’t simply reached, it was surged past. For a second, the information that the werewolf had outsmarted Ron truly hit his conscious mind, without the filter of Sloth. The air around him reeked of an unsavory grey which was being discarded with every exhale Ron took. He was suspended in time as his mind debated itself. How did this make him feel?

“Your mother never told you not to go into a stranger's van?”, Betty yelled indignantly.

Betty listened hard as soon as her mouth shut, and she perked her left ear up. A wicked howl arose, and it echoed through the small hills of the rural night before it turned into a contorted snort and laugh.

“I’m not sure which of us is rarer”, remarked the werewolf as it scraped its claws against the side of the van. Despite the severity of the situation, Betty winced as her paint job was scraped to smithereens.

“Watch the paint!”, Betty screeched. She began slowly inching towards the driver’s seat as the werewolf walked towards the locked backdoors.

“Well, no contest then. I’ve seen several of my kind, but I’ve never met a funny woman!”, it yelled as its hand shot through the frame of the van and wrapped around Betty’s left ankle. The werewolf squeezed, and Betty’s old bones were crushed immediately. For a second, no sound left her lips, then she screamed with all her might, and she began crying from the pain.

The werewolf merely laughed as it let go, and a second later its paw punched a hole through the back door. It turned the handle and pulled its paw back. It removed its paw from the breach, and in a flutter of motion, the double doors of the van were flung wide open. Strong moonlight entered the van, illuminating it much better than the soft grey of Betty’s monitor. The werewolf stood nearly seven feet tall, on its hindlegs. Above its head but between its raised ears, Betty spotted a full moon.

The werewolf chuckled, a hint of malice in its laugh.

“Never thought you’d be killed by one of the fables you hunted, huh?”, it asked in victory.

As Betty’s mouth began to open to scream, the werewolf was pulled backwards by its tail so harshly that its head and chest slammed into the ground, then a foot forcefully descended upon the werewolf’s back, shattering three of its ribs in the process. Ron pressed his foot down forcefully, and his golden trimmed high-topped shoe pushed the werewolf further into the mud.

“Greetings, Mrs. Black. Has this mutt wounded you?”, asked Ron.

“He broke my ankle and I’m bleeding”, managed Betty.

“Ah, truly unfortunate. I shall heal them soon. Does that conclude his transgression?”, asked Ron’s prude voice.

“He punched holes in my van, ruined my paint job, and he’s sexist”, concluded Betty. Ron’s mouth began to open, but Betty interrupted.

“Ron, who are you?”, she asked, in awe.

“Ah, my utmost apologies”, he nearly yelled in surprise. He slammed his foot down several times before the rest of his thoughts were spoken, to counteract the werewolf’s healing.

“How unruly of me, truly. My name is Pride, and you shall refer to me by my full name, Ronyld...And it is imperative you do not forget to pronounce that ‘y’, Mrs. Black”. She responded with a wordless ‘ok'.

Then, Betty witnessed Ronyld, who now looked like a dedicated bodybuilder with the face of a 13-year-old, suck his teeth before addressing the werewolf.

“This is for your transgressions against Mrs. Black”, Ronyld said as he ripped the werewolf’s tail clear out of its body. Betty was grateful for the cover of night and her failing vision because she saw little detail of the gruesome act. Then, Pride bent down, one hand on either end of the bloody tail. He rammed the tail into the ground and scraped it against the Earth before quickly pulling it up and tying its ends together, behind the werewolf’s head.

“Mrs. Black, how does one subdue a werewolf?”, asked Pride, contemplating his next move.

“With silver!”, yelled Betty.

Pride wrestled with the gagged werewolf as he contemplated his next move.

“Do we need to bring it back alive for the reward?”, asked Pride.

“Yes!”, she yelled again.

“I need your necklace”, Pride said flatly.

“Oh, hell no!”, she fired back.

“Unless you miraculously began producing milk today, Mrs. Black, I suggest you throw that ugly necklace to me, or else that demon of a baby that you foster shall be quite hungry. That van is running on fumes, you know?”, Pride rattled off as he struggled to suppress the raging werewolf.

“It’s my only family heirloom!”, she cried out, close to tears of sadness.

“I’m not going to stick it up his ass lady, just throw it here!”, Pride fired back, on the edge of being annoyed.

Betty grimaced as she closed her bad eye and took her precious necklace off. Then, she threw the silver necklace in Pride’s general direction. She watched in horror as it flew many feet to the left of his outstretched arm, then gasped as it stopped, motionless, just before it passed Ronyld. It hovered in the air for less than a second, then flung itself into Pride’s grasp.

“God damn I love magic”, Pride muttered.

“Up we go!”, he yelled before stepping off the werewolf and yanking the knot of the separated tail. The werewolf followed the momentum of Pride’s pull, and it had nearly stood up before Pride switched his grip from the knotted tail to the back of the werewolf’s head. With excessive force, Pride slammed the creature’s head into a pine tree, creating a large open fracture halfway down the beast’s snout. With his free hand, he plunged the silver necklace deep into the werewolf’s back until it nearly touched the beast’s beating heart.

“And that is for insulting my Pride. Now, you move when I say, or I sink that hideous silver heirloom into your heart, you hear me?”, asked Pride.

“Ok”, said the Werewolf.

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