Chapter 8: Dispute to chase, Standoff

Dispute to chase

The pack was outnumbered 8 to 5, The territorial wolves kept Howling, snarling and barking but kept their distance. The grey wolf uses this opportunity to slowly back away and turn around trying to avoid a costly confrontation, the pack members also did the same except for the mother wolf who were facing the opposite direction trying to serve as a rear guard.

But after the grey wolf took a couple steps. One of the territorial wolves blocked the direction halting the grey wolf's pace. This causes the grey wolf and the pack members to growl. It seems that they don't want the pack to leave.

The grey wolf threateningly  snarls and tries to close the distance between him and the blocking wolf but the wolf keeps backing away whenever the grey wolf tries to get close.

 Realization comes to the grey wolf as the grey wolf sees the territorial wolves were instead of confronting them completely were, in fact, trying to stall the pack as a couple of new arrivals started to join the encirclement, There was now more of them.

This causes the grey wolf to signal the pack members to start running and they began to aggressively charge towards the wolf trying to block their path. This causes the blocking wolf to yelp and tries to step away before it was hit by the five bodies charging towards him.

Too late! before the wolf who was blocking could step to the side, the grey wolf rammed the side of the blocking wolf which causes the wolf to trip and fall to his side. The blocking wolf was then trampled and clawed upon by the pack members of the grey wolf.

The pack started running with the two slowest pack members running ahead. The two juvenile wolves were fast for an average wolf but the three adults were faster due to being well fed and at the prime of their life.

The territorial wolves were now chasing them, sounds of howling and barking can be heard behind. Some fast territorial wolves were able to catch them, but the pack was able to block and trip them easily since they came in one by one.

Apparently the territorial wolves were trying to take out the weakest of the pack which was the two juvenile wolves, IT and the grey wolf though used this tactic against them.

 Whenever a territorial wolf was close enough, IT and the grey wolf, who were behind the pack would flank the sides of any would be threat that attempted to get near and overtake the two by clawing, swiping and biting their front or hind limbs, tripping them in the process."

After a while, they finally reach the border of their own territory and there the pack stops running. The grey wolf then turns around indicating this is where they'll stand their ground since this was their home and territory. Those that were chasing them stopped at the edge of the packs territory, unsure whether they should risk fighting while fragmented or not. They started to howl in order to call all the wolves that got lost during the chase.

Slowly the number of wolves on the other side starts increasing as more and more find their way towards the howling pack. The six territorial wolves who were able to chase the pack started to increase in number, three more arrives, and then another three. The numbers kept increasing until there was a total of 15 wolves on the other side, a staggering three against one. That's when they stopped howling.  IT and the rest of the pack members starts growling but stayed still in their positions, in order to conserve their energy.

Standoff

It became a standoff, two sides standing ground at the edges of their designated territory. The occasional growling could be heard on both sides but none was showing extreme aggressiveness like barking and snarling. In the current standoff, IT had the opportunity to gauge the other groups strength. IT first tries to study the other group as a whole.

The enemy pack have two different arrays of fur colors, ranging from a muddy white to a smoky red color, It seems that the group of 15 wolves were somewhat healthy, none were too thin indicating that either there's a bountiful amount of game on their territory or that the territory was big enough to accommodate their population. But somehow, It seems they aren't able to utilize the full extent of their territory as they were although healthy looking, they were not as well fed as the pack of the grey wolf, that owns a minuscule territory, compared to theirs.

IT then began to look at the opposing wolves weaknesses and noticed that most were quite young, out of the 15 wolves, 8 were juveniles. Around 3 were probably around the same age as IT, although they were quite noticeably smaller. The other 4 young juveniles were about the same age as the mother wolf's two children.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The young and inexperienced, an advantage and opportunity to surprise the young ones and dwindle their large numbers sharply. Although IT himself was young as well, IT has experienced near life and death situations in all his past forms, making him more capable than an adult wolf.

The abnormally large number of young wolves signifies that there was either a recent increase in the size of their territory or that a large group of game has settled in their territory and thus made it bountiful. For their pack to also increase and produce more young wolves means that there were two or three more couples of breeding wolves in their pack.

Their strength wasn't only in their numbers, It was also the power of the adult wolves too. In the observation of IT, there were two domineering old wolves. The fur of one of the old wolves was the color of dirty white while the other was a patchy brown red. Scars were filled on their faces and they had small patches and holes on their fur indicating that they were older than the rest and more experienced from their dangerous encounters in the past fights, they were somewhat weaker than the younger adults in raw strength but experience and time have made them on par or above an adult wolf's level. The other 5 adults wolves were at the prime of their lives, equally as strong and agile as the two adults on the packs side.

The situation was near impossible, The pack only consisted of 2 full grown adults which were the grey and the mother wolf, One adult size juvenile wolf which were IT, and two juveniles whose only experience on fighting with wolves were the play fights they did with the pack. If one were to look at it in a crude way it would be three against one for each wolf. But on a more logical level, IT knows it would be between 5 against 7 or 10 since the younger wolves on the enemies side will most likely just stay behind and watch the adults do their thing and learn from them.

Of course, none of the wolves from the packs side will sit out since the pack is greatly outnumbered and they need all the numbers they could get. But since the two young wolves are greatly inexperienced there will be a compromise from the third oldest. IT will be in the front along with the grey and the mother wolf and the two younger wolves will be slightly behind, so they don't get too overwhelmed.

An option would be is that the pack could escape and abandon their territory. There's barely any game around on their territory, and they could avoid this encounter and just continue running.

But if the pack decides to run they would have no place to safe place to rest since there seem to be no unoccupied territories and they would always be vulnerable to attacks from other wolves since the pack would be forced to travel to other wolf territories and at such a big number, they would be easily detected. So the pack stands their ground, to defend the small territory.

IT could see the reason why the other pack decided to observe first and not just charge straight in. If the confrontation happens, both sides would incur great losses although the pack of IT has the huge risk of getting wiped out. The two old white wolves that looked like the alpha male and the alpha female were not moving and weren't doing anything that would ignite the fight. IT also notices that the two old wolves were also sizing up his pack. the old wolves were still deciding whether the risk of losing pack members is worth the eradication of pesky invading wolves.

After a few moments, the two old wolves have decided to move forward signaling their pack to start the fight and charge. They have decided that the risk was worth it and 9 enemy wolves began running towards the pack head on with no need for plans since they were completely confident with their strength and numbers. As they came closer IT and his pack ready themselves to fight to the death!

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INFO SECTION

{ I love cliffhangers but I promise there won't be one in the next chapter. I'm looking for proofreaders again since I think my current proofreader stopped visiting royal road and has abandoned his post without  notifying me. }

{Last Note For This Chapter: if there's any grammar, criticism, mistakes or any other confusing stuff in the story let me know in the comment section below and I will answer it there on the comment section or on the next Chapter of the info section and do the fixes on the current chapter.I'm kinda blind at seeing any horrible sentences that need some rephrasing or any other info that I might be confusing, so I'm looking for any help I can get.}