Jabor watched as Joe's muscles tensed, the air around him crackling with energy. With a guttural cry that echoed through the battlefield, his body contorted and expanded. Bones snapped, reshaping beneath bristling fur as he grew into the towering form of a giant elk.
“Joe!!” Jabor shouted, crying, and made room. The elk rampaged in pain.
Jabor cried out again, “Noo-o-oo, Joe! Stop it, you’re hurting yourself!”
Fury seethed from Jaxon as energy swirled around him. “You’ll. PAY. For this!” The blood around Jaxon misted and slowly coalesced as giant mace of blood as it rose to circle the cervidian. It was large, given the plethora of wolf blood in his vicinity.
Jaxon grabbed hold of the handle and swung recklessly at the three melee team members on Tobin’s team. In response, the three dashed in a triangle entrapment formation. Between them a light cage blossomed into being, trapping Jaxon inside. Jaxon smashed but was forced towards the center as the moved towards him
"Goddess be damned," Cal whispered, eyes wide in astonishment.
These abilities were unlike anything he had heard of. He couldn’t help but look at Joe’s transformation. Joe looked back, nodded his head, then went to assist Jaxon.
Cal could see it, the wounds on Joe weren’t gone, they were just suppressed enough by the magic of the transformation to make a last stand. The stab wounds hit vitals.
Jabor, alone now, snapped. “Fucking Jaxon, FUCK, bro!” Jabor got up energy swirling toward his hand as he prepared to slash his palm with a dagger. In that moment, a shadow appeared, with a similar dagger, and lunged at Jabor.
Jabor caught off guard, turned to face the shadow, but before he realized, a lightning arrow flew and pierced it through.
“Focus,” Elena yelled, now hovering in the air. Elena's breath caught in her throat, but she didn't freeze. "Cal! Stay alive."
Cal dodged the two green arrows that came for him. He did not know what these archers abilities were, but he didn’t want to find out.
“Temp, if you have anything you can do, now would be the time.”
“Infusing strength and dexterity. I’m level 24 after this fight, so you’ll gain 24 strength and 24 dexterity.”
Cal threw the spear at one of the archers to throw off her aim and drew his pistol and knife. This was what his style was meant for. People, not beasts.
Elena took advantage of the spear throw and fired several electric charged arrows at the archer and crippled her. The power coming from Elena let her move across the battlefield at once. She was fast and could step on the air with the power of her electricity, enabling her to make brutal point blank shots after laying a suppressive fire.
Cal found it mesmerizing, but remained focused on the battle, finishing the crippled archer with a few precise oversoul shots. He could feel his strength and dexterity increase as Temp had access to more attributes.
Cal then started shooting to the side pelting the three longswords with bullets catching them unaware, as he dodged the remaining archer’s arrows as he approached him. Each of his movements was honed by his training – to disrupt the enemy’s formation, and to create openings for his teammates.
A silver dagger appeared in his hand, dispersed a growing shadow before it could manifest and found its mark in the side of an advancing wolf.
"Stay close!" Elena called out, an arrow nocked and ready. Her violet eyes, usually unreadable, blazed with fierce determination. She released the string; the arrow sang, a swift death whispering past Cal's shoulder to bury itself in another wolf’s eye.
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The wolves snarled, a cacophony of primal rage as they circled both teams, Joe having turned into an elk, was rampaging the wolves and attacking one of the longswordsmen. Joe’s antlers were a forest of spears. He tossed his head, sending the small demonling swordsman flying like a broken doll.
With the loss of the third swordsman, the formation collapsed, and Jaxon swung hard and crushed another swordswoman beneath his bloody mace.
"Watch your flank, Jaxon!" Cal's voice cut through the din. He parried a wild shot from the other archer with his dagger by infusing bloodlust into it, similar to his spear.
A wolf, unlike the rest, came and chomped at the remaining swordswoman as he was about to strike Jaxon. It was as if death itself had possessed the wolf. Atop the wolf was Jabor. Cal noticed he resonated a dark energy, and he could feel the wolf’s link to him. A necromancer?
“Anyone have eyes on Tobin?” Cal roared.
"Got him," Elena replied, dropping shots towards Tobin with precise shots. Her quiver seemed endless, each arrow a promise of pain to those who threatened them. The electricity surrounding her powered every single shot and gave her a speed that could challenge above her rank.
Tobin was not fast, but he was retreating. He used the shadows to defend against Elena’s lightning, seemingly absorbing the electricity and the sharpness, but not the momentum.
Elena got into range of Tobin and pulled out her own short sword as she arrived in melee range.
Joe roared, a sound that shook the cavern. He trampled over the stage-ones from the wolfpack, his massive hooves crushing bone.
"Keep them off Joe!" Jabor shouted, as he ducked a blow and countered with a mace hit across nearby wolves.
"Doing my best," Jaxon grunted. His movements were also blur, his presence on the battlefield less a person and more a force of nature.
Cal parried arrows with his dagger and used suppressive fire from his pistol to lock down the last archer. His shots were precise, and as the archer kited the bullets, he fell deeper into Cal’s tempo, until Cal was in range to wield his knife, grapple the archer, and finish him with a quick slice to the throat.
Together, they were efficient, brutal, and synchronized. However, while the battle with humans was coming to a close, the wolves around them felt endless.
Blood coated the battleground, slick between Cal's boots as he parried a strike from a snarling wolf.
"Joe, turn back – we might still be able to heal you!" Jaxon roared, a visceral cry that echoed through the trees. His powerful mace sent wolves sprawling, avenging each drop of blood spilled.
Elena meanwhile fought Tobin to a standstill, coating her short sword now with some of the ambient electricity surrounding her. The battle was fierce, and Cal moved towards them firing suppressive shots at precise moments to disrupt Tobin’s tempo.
"Death is not the end," Jabor grunted, slicing his palm once more. Smaller wolves manifested the dark energy and fought their brethren.
Tobin's red hair flickered like a flame within the melee, his grin no longer confident but desperate. He ducked under Elena’s swing, only to take an oversoul shot to the arm.
"Cal! He's—" Elena's warning came too late; Tobin was already slipping into his own shadow.
"Damnation!" Cal swore as he reached Elena, his blade cleaving air where Tobin had been moments earlier. Frustration boiled within him, mingling with the bitter taste of loss.
"AHHHH, I’LL KILL HIM!" Jaxon spat, his gray eyes stormy.
"We'll hunt him down, bro." Cal said.
"Survive first," Elena snapped back, releasing another arrow into the fray of wolves. Their circle held—a bastion amidst chaos—but Tobin's escape gnawed at them all.
Jaxon's roar tore through the wolfpack, a raw expression of loss and fury. His eyes, once cold and calculating, now blazed with an infernal light. He crashed into one of the stage-two wolves, blood mace swinging with brutal intent. Each hit was a thunderclap. The battlefield echoed with the violence of his grief.
Joe was now faltering, having lost the target of his fury. He was embedded by several additional arrows, as the easy target on the field.
His supernatural reserves were bleeding out.
"Keep them off!" Jabor bellowed, his voice hoarse. A wolf lunged, and he pivoted, sending it crashing into a tree with a sickening thud.
"Joe!" Jaxon’s voice cracked as he joined the large elk, his features twisted in a snarl. Jabor arrived as well. All three interlocked their antlers in silent grief and farewell. Cal and Elena covered and defended the cervidians while Jaxon and Jabor said their farewells to their brother.
Cal could not help grieving as well. His emotions were pushed into the battle, and his fury was taken out on the wolves having lost the true target. Together Cal and Elena became a storm of vengeance, their attacks ruthless and unyielding. They fought not just with skill but with a savage emotional tempest that gave them terrifying strength.
"Too many," Cal gasped, his dagger a blur as he fended off snapping jaws and slashing talons.
Despite the catharsis from slaughter, it would not bring Joe back. Not even Jabor’s magic could do that.