Spritely Fellow Ch. 03

I poured my energy into my right arm and shaped a shield. Using my soulreach to mold it and my arm to channel energy, I made a tower shield in less than 3 seconds. I then reached into the trees around me and weaved my energy in to give me a home field advantage. This came naturally to me. The tactics were childish at best, but the manipulation of my soul was instinctive. I justknewwhat I could do. Of course, power without knowledge never succeeds.

The feral tore into my inch thick shield and quickly tore it off my hands. I barely disconnected it in time. It was standing on two legs and reaching for my arm to try and hold me down. I grabbed the nearest tree mentally and quickly had it shoot out thick barbed branches to make a thorny wall in front of me. The lycan started tearing into the wall in an attempt to get to me but I just backed closer to the tree spawning the wall. I wasn't able to get scared after my whole tree incident, but I was very concerned for my safety. Then the strangest thing happened. It backed down. It looked at me with these tortured eyes that were filled with suspicion. They looked human.

It backed off and started trotting towards the dark when something entered my extra senses. There were numerous pitch-black werewolves moving to the forefront. There hulking forms came in from the other side of the clearing. The one on point was easily a foot taller than the rest and seemed to be barking orders at the rest, no pun intended. The pack spread out to get a half circle and started closing in on the feral.

Litria had told me about werewolves. She had said that ferals were a threat to the whole species. They attacked everything on sight and thus built hostility towards every lycan. Ferals were the things they wrote stories about. This one would be executed right here. It started swinging its head wildly looking at all of them closing in. It was trying to keep them all in its field of view, until it backed into my wall. It jerked and turned around to look at me. The pack took that as incentive to lunge out of the darkness.

Everything slowed down when it should have sped up. I saw five lycan come flying out of the woods with their jaws wide and ready to strike. I saw the feral's ears perk up as it looked at me. I saw its eyes, and they were filled with fear. I made a decision, one that I would repeat a million times. I chose to save it. I retracted the wood to give it an opening and then made a dome around it. I had to let it into my area to do this, but it was better than just letting it get slaughtered. It may seem childish, but I still stand by the principle of fair fights. There might be a story that justifies it, but until I hear that story I'm backing the underdog.

The lycans crashed into the dome I created and landed hard on the ground. All but the alpha got up and started thrashing at the wall. That wasn't going to happen. I grew spikes all over the wall and put a barb at each tip. Only one lycan continued trying and got a few two foot long piercings for his trouble. I poured energy into the spikes in his chest to create little arms that pushed against him and pulled out the spike. He roared loud enough to put some ringing in my ears, but I refused to flinch. I was pissed. Or as pissed as I could get at twelve. Only one of the Lycans had wounds, and given the pattern, it was him that pushed the feral into the tree. Five on one after you already injured it severely? I don't care if that's the rule of the jungle, it ain't gonna fuckin happen. Not while I'm there.

The alpha began to have his fur pull into his skin as he began to shrink. His claws shrunk down to long nails as his ears found their home on the side of his head. After about thirty seconds, the transformation was complete. A seven foot tall white man got up and walked calmly towards me. He wasn't naked per se, but seemed to have channeled a partial transformation to get thick fur from his waist to his knees. He had shoulder length black hair and a rather chiseled figure from all the wolf activity. His hips were a little wide by about two inches, but other than that he looked normal on the outside. He walked up to the wall and looked down at me. Fuck, he was tall.

"Give us the feral, boy. It must die." Already not on my good list, this guy wasn't scoring any points. I walked up to him and considered my options. This guy was an alpha and I wanted him to leave the woods and never come back. These two things were important to keep in mind. As an alpha, he couldn't be persuaded off of this. Placating him would only be a temporary option and just scaring him, while challenging, would just make him fall back. I needed something that would make him never want to come back here again. Something Cassandra once said came back up. It was something about me having control over her dominion. These weren't just her woods. They weremine.

"You dare to come into my woods and demand things of me? You think you have some power here? This my domain and I will not have it trampled upon by someone as insignificant as YOU, mutt!" I channeled my rage and a little bit of Litria into my voice. I was pissed off enough to have a controlled, but noticeable tremble in my voice. As I spoke, I channeled my energy into my body to have wood come creeping out from my limbs. Tree roots grew out of my legs and crawled on the ground towards him as my arms became a sinister bunch of wooden tendrils taking up the area around me. I pulled back the wall as I came to full posture. I bent the trees away from me to give me room to operate. I looked like Mother Nature's attack dog, pun intended. "Leave now wolf. I will give this one bit of mercy to you to go back from where you came. This one," I gestured with my 'arms' at the feral "has taken asylum in these woods. It is now MY concern."

I knew this would start a fight. I knew about lycans and so I knew the alpha would fight no matter what, but I needed the background so that they would never come back to "my domain" for fear of what might happen. I could see he had no clue what I was, and the unknown is terrifying. He had enough testosterone going through him that he would fight anyway. Besides the whole plan hinged on me winning, if that was possible.

I stepped out from the cage of wood and closed it behind me. They would not sneak in and finish the job now. The wood coming out of my feet sprouted new spikes in front of me and detached from the spikes at the rear in a destructive sort of walk as I moved forward. My extra sight had been active long enough my eyes looked like two balls of light with red at the edge. The breeze coming off of my soul was strong enough that the alpha had to plant his human feet as he snarled in anger. He transformed back into a werewolf and fell to all fours. I could see hesitation in his eyes and feel anger in mine.

The wolf on my right jumped up first expecting me to turn and fight him leaving me open. I could feel the wood still in him from the spikes. Without even looking at him, made the splinters grow exponentially and he yelped as spikes started coming out from the inside of his shoulder. The one on my left was already in mid leap expecting me to have turned my back. He realized too late his mistake. I put barbs on five of the branches coming off of my arm and made them grow to about a foot wide. I grabbed him with all five and slammed him into the ground. The force of the impact put a small crater in the ground as he howled in pain. The branches began to slither up and down his body dragging the barbs with it until he was completely immobilized by it. I detached those branches and turned to the other three. Two were in a defensive stance in front of the alpha.

I would normally let them go, but I had to see this through to end this for good. I pulled the energy from my arms back until my arms were human. I then rose up five feet and detached from the spikes. As I fell I gather my energy in my feet. As soon as I hit the ground I let it explode out. Vines and roots started racing towards the group as it weaved in and out of the ground. The two in front didn't have time to do anything before the wood shot out of the ground and spiraled around them, tightening until they couldn't move. The alpha jumped seven feet in the air trying to get over them, but the rest of the wood shot up in spikes and vines grabbed and constrained his limbs. The spikes cut into his left shoulder down to his right knee. Not very deep, but enough that he felt it. To his credit, he didn't howl like the other two, just a grunt and a grimace.

I lowered him until he was face to face with me. I could see a glow on his face from my extrasight. Those eyes looked defiant, but scared. With a wooden gauntlet over my hand to get a good grip, I grabbed his throat and pulled him closer.

"You will never enter my woods again. If you do, I will decimate your pack until naught but blood and meat remain. Gather your wounded and go. Remember the feral is mine." I was really good at mimicking the tone from Litria's first speech to me. I pulled back the wood from the wolves and they staggered to their feet. The one I dropped second tried charging me and I turned to face him. The Alpha then growled form behind me and he stopped. I let go of the alpha and walked over to the feral as they gathered themselves and left. As the alpha left he turned and looked at me with barely contained malice. So much for solving this permanently.

I turned to the feral and slowly sat next to it. It looked up at me before passing out. With all threats gone, I had no more drive to stay conscious. I put my hand on the side of its massive head and slowly before settling in to sleep next to it. Right before I slept I pulled back my energy and turned off my extrasight. I was immediately assailed by intense fatigue as the drain from the fight set in. I didn't have a chance at staying awake and welcomed the embrace of sleep.