The Alpha Ch. 02

"I have. Many times." My mom replied simply. "But he isn't truly alive and as such he cannot truly be killed. Every time he eventually comes back, even if I scatter his atoms across the cosmos. Besides, I am no longer truly a Goddess. I concentrated my power into a single mass of Divinity and removed it from my body so that I could stay on earth to raise my son. in peace. The only power that remains is residual. Now I am simply an immortal, not a goddess. There is only one being in existence that can permanently destroy the Leviathan."

"Jimmy..." Jen said in understanding.

"Yes. My son can destroy the monster but he is nowhere near strong enough yet."

"Why me? I'm just a werewolf." I asked.

"No, my darling son, you are not."

"What are you talking about? You said it yourself just moments ago. I can shift at will!"

"It's not that simple."

"Why do you always speak in riddles?" I said before raising my voice to a yell, "WHAT AM I!?"

Suddenly I cried out in pain and fell to my knees as an agonizing burning sensation over my left pectoral exploded in my brain. It hurt far worse than any experience I had ever had with actual fire and I reflexively ripped open my shirt and looked down to examine the damage. I heard Jen and Buffy panicking as they asked my mom what was happening to me but I couldn't help but stare in shock at what I saw. Burned into my flesh was three digits:

666

"He's here," my mom said.

"Wh... What am I?" I gasped.

"You are my servant", said an inhuman voice, causing hairs to stand up on the back of my neck. "He who will spread my word and lead my armies against the forces of Light. You will kneel before me and together we will cleanse this planet of it's parasites and then turn our conquest to the bloody throne of Heaven of itself."

I turned to see the most terrifying thing I had ever seen:

The Leviathan.

It stood at more than eight feet tall and was built like The Incredible Hulk, with dark grey stone-like skin that had a hint of navy blue. There were smooth tentacles in place of long hair and an even longer beard as well as eyes that were entirely invisible due to the eerie blue light shining brightly from both eye sockets. I turned back towards my mom when I heard her speak to the monster.

"My son will never join you."

"Oh? Says who? The big bad huntress of Olympus that ditched her Divinity to become a soccer mom in suburbia?" Mocked the abomination.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," she said as he advanced towards her.

I instinctively stepped over to interpose myself between the unstoppable monster and my mother. The gesture didn't go unnoticed by the Leviathan. He simply turned towards me and said, "to stand against me means death."

My fangs and claws extended as my irises glowed red and I said flatly, "then let me show you how an Alpha dies."

I roared deeply in challenge and started towards him but I bounced off a shimmering barrier before I had crossed half the short distance between us. I looked around in confusion for a second, noting that an energy shield encompassed not only me but also all four members of my pack and Buffy. When I turned back towards my mom, she gave me a sad smile and said, "I could not be more proud of you, my son. I am so very sorry that I will not be there to see you embrace this brave new world. Just know that I felt more joy and pride in the last 18 years than I did in all of the my prior divine existence. I love you SO much!"

"Mom, what are you..." I started to ask before I realized what was happening.

She was the one who had trapped us inside the force-field. An act that had probably required all of her remaining power, what little there was inside her de-powered and mostly mortal body. My mother was now helpless. She intended to sacrifice herself so that me and those close to me could survive.

As the Leviathan stopped in front of my mother, who showed no fear or panic whatsoever, I pounded on the magical wall and raged, "If you touch her..."

"You'll what, little boy?" He sneered.

"I'll eat your FUCKING heart..." I promised in a low voice, causing even my own pack members to flinch at the determined rage that filled words they never thought to hear me say.

"I don't have one." He responded.

Then he jammed his long claws into my mother's torso.

"NOOOOO!!" I screamed in agony as bright silver light burst from her open eyes and slightly parted lips, quickly growing to a blinding intensity before an enormous detonation robbed me of all sight, sound and scent.

And then the world went black.

:..:

I woke up in a huge stone room next to an unconscious Buffy as the flickering light of wall mounted torches illuminated large granite pillars and colorful tapestries hanging from the walls. I stirred and began to rise when suddenly a light-speed montage of images and information overloading my cortex and suddenly I knew exactly where, and more importantly It was actually quite strange to feel knowledge being jammed into my brain. I had no idea as to the origin of the information but it did inform me of the most important developement:

The massive release of divine energy resulting from my mother's death within the mortal realm had shattered the laws of physics in a highly intense but localized manner that carried me, Buffy and my entire pack through a brief tear in space and time.

They woke at that moment due to the fact that they were experiencing the same information upload into the brain as I had and the strange and odd sensation was impossible to sleep through. I was on my knees looking bereft, with a blank look in my eyes. Everyone looked around in awe for a moment before their eyes settled on me. They all gave me solemn looks of sympathy that I acknowledged with a numb nod. They sensed that I wasn't anywhere near ready to talk about my loss and as such simply began focusing on adjusting to their new situation. Except Buffy, who rose and came over to wrap me in a hug. I was surprised that she hadn't been freaked out after being exposed to the supernatural, witnessing the death of a goddess and being thrown centuries back in time. Instead she seemed more concerned with my pain and loss as we silently embraced for what had to be at least a half hour.

I had lost everything. My Mom, my home, my life, my hopes and my dreams had been wiped away in a single moment. However I still had my pack, and that was all a wolf truly needed-or so I unsuccessfully tried to convince myself. I refused to let myself mourn in that moment though and soon I felt my grief shifting into a cold rage. I stepped back and caught Buffy's eyes before smiling reassuringly and saying, "let's get out of here."

"How?" She asked, as there were no entrances or exits in plain sight.

I led everyone over to a glossy black mirror made from polished obsidian that radiated significant arcane power in regular pulses. Looking close, one could see that the image reflected wasn't our own reflection but rather that of another, similar room. I stepped forward to press a finger against the surface and, as I had hoped, my fingertips passed straight through the polished surface as if it was a thick liquid.

"Wait," Buffy said. "What are we going to do? We're in sixteenth century Mexico. Ya know, right in the middle of the Spanish Conquest. Do we have any way to get back home?"

"No," I replied honestly. "Archangels and Gods are the only ones who can manipulate the Chronosphere, as I understand it. As far as what we will do; I haven't really thought about it but I'm going to try to save as many lives from the steel and the cross as I can. I refuse to stand by as the indigenous people are raped, murdered and tortured by self-righteous men who think themselves divinely superior to any nonbelievers. It's no different than the Islamic extremism of our time, westerners just don't like to believe it. I can't ask you guys to join me in such a brutal endeavor. You are free to do whatever it is you wish to do in this time."

"I'm with you!" Jen said angrily, as if I should've known as much.

"I don't have anything better to do." Courtney said in a bored voice.

I looked to Will and Dante and said, "look, until a few months ago you were just regular high school seniors. Then you became werewolves and that must have been hard enough to adjust to, especially considering the circumstances of your Turning. If you follow me you will have to change yourselves again, this time into warriors and killers. Killing doesn't come easy for some people and I don't want to put that sort of burden on you. So I ask you to carefully consider what you wish to do."

"We're in," Will replied for the both of them.

"How did you learn so much about this stuff anyway?" Courtney asked.

"My mom," I replied. "She trained me in childhood in martial arts, weapons both ancient and modern, hunting, tracking, survivalism, field medicine and even metallurgy along with dozens of other topics and skills. I didn't know why at the time, I just figured she liked doing outdoors stuff with me. I knew she had been a recreational bowhunter and Olympic archer when she was younger."

"That didn't seem weird?" Courtney asked.

I just shrugged and replied, "She made it fun for me though and I never even realized that she was teaching me everything a hunter and warrior could ever need to know. She taught me military history and supernatural lore by telling me exciting stories of adventure and heroism. Stories of the Spartan youths always pushed me to want more of it, too. I became obsessed with the idea of turning myself into the perfect warrior, or at least my romanticized childhood version of one."

"Our alpha is a regular John Connor," Courtney quipped.

"I love those movies," Dante said.

"Here's my plan..."

:..:

In early 1521 AD, the Aztec Empire was all but conquered and Spanish Conquistadors along with tens of thousands of allied local warriors besieged Tenochtitlan, the great capital of the Aztecs. Built on an island on the west side of lake Texcoco that was largely composed of solid limestone jutting up from the brackish water, the grand splendor of the city was such that hadn't been seen since the days of ancient Egypt. With nearly a quarter of a million people inhabiting the island city, Constantinople was the only other city on earth that had a population capable of competing. The city boasted a great pyramid, several large stone temples and twenty residential districts in addition to a ten mile long levee built to separate the freshwater surrounding the island from the rest of the brackish lake. There were three long causeways leading from the great island city to the mainland, each with a large town built near the lakeshore where the causeways made landfall. The causeways were wide enough for a dozen horses to ride abreast and had bridges at regular intervals so that boats could pass underneath. At night the bridges were raised to prevent access to the city by intruders or enemies.

And now the large and beautiful city, along with the empire that built it, was about to wiped out by cruel and greedy conquistadors who used Christianity as an excuse to treat everyone else as if they were below them, especially indigenous peoples. There were less than two thousand conquistadors in total however their leader, Hernan Cortes, had proven himself more than capable of manipulating local politics and making false promises to secure the fealty of many of the Aztec's enemies and conquered subjects. As such he had nearly eighty thousand native warriors under his command in addition to his own spaniards, who possessed sixteen cannons and thirteen single masted ships. Cortes had broken his men up into three groups consisting of a few hundred spaniards, four ships and twenty thousand native warriors and assigned a favored subordinate to command each. The Spanish conquistadors started their siege by occupying the causeways to trap the Aztecs inside their city, fortifying them with wooden barricades and small cannon.

Tenochtitlan at its peak could produce almost one hundred thousand warriors due to the fact that all Aztec males were trained in military academies as warriors and expected to take up arms during the war season, though they practiced a trade for the rest of the year. The exceptions to this were the elite military orders: the Otomi, Eagle warriors, Jaguar warriors and dreaded "Shorn Ones". However due to the starvation caused by the siege and an epidemic of smallpox that had been introduced by the Spanish, the city's defending force consisted of less than half that number. In addition, the most recent emperor had succumbed to smallpox just days before while the two previous emperors, as well as most of the military leaders and nobles, had been killed or captured by the Spanish and their traitorous native allies. Now, Tenochtitlan's people were desperate, starving and hopeless as they tried everything they could to defend their own existence.

Inside the grand temple of Tezcatlipoca, two women entreated their respective gods, one dark and one light, to deliver her people from the threat of the invading Spaniards, their words echoing through the veil of reality. Known as the God of Smoke and Mirrors and the deity of night, magic, trickery, earth, obsidian and the jaguar, Tezcatlipoca was the Aztec's dark god and opposite to Quetzalcoatl, the lord of light, knowledge, justice and the morning star who was referred to as 'the Feathered Serpent' in Aztec cultures and 'the Winged Serpent' in many Mayan cultures to the south. The appearances of both women seemed to reflect their polarized aspects. The younger of the two women was aged only 19 years yet was already the high priestess of Quetzalcoatl due to her nomination by the god himself. The priestess of Tezcatlipoca was in her thirties, with tanned skin and a perfect hourglass body while the young priestess of Quetzalcoatl was slim and fair skinned. One was voluptuous and seductive in appearance while the other was pure and innocent but both were attractive both aesthetically and sexually.

Their prayers were not the desperate pleas of frantic women but rather the final act of a lifelong plan which they were trying to bring to fruition. They kneeled before a huge black mirror of polished obsidian, wearing not the standard robes of priestesses but rather outfits that exemplified their personalities: the priestess of Quetzalcoatl wore a large headdress of white feathers and a necklace shaped in the likeness of a feathered serpent along with gold and jade jewelry. Her only clothing was small bikini briefs composed of a belt of braided gold and a white cotton gusset with a matching bra that had white cotton cups secured by braided gold that encased her surprisingly large, perky breasts. The dark priestess of Tezcatlipoca was a perfect example of the future stereotype of a sexy latina; curvaceous body, sultry demeanor, full lips, small waist, big butt and very large bust. Her clothing options were even more revealing as she wore only a long black dress with a scandalously low neckline that showed the inner swells of her large, round orbs.

Suddenly the smooth and glossy surface of the black mirror rippled softly and their eyes widened in awe as I stepped through the portal.

Their lips parted in a smiles but their eyes never left me as my five companions stepped through the portal behind me. My gaze was immediately drawn to both women. The flickering light of the torches lining the walls of the temple chamber illuminated the hills and valleys of their exposed flesh. The younger woman's outfit showed off toned midsection and round hips while the outfit of the older, more voluptuous priestess emphasized her amazing bust and hourglass figure. They both approached before kneeling.

The older of the two spoke seductively, "Son of the Morning Star, your father Quetzalcoatl sent visions of your arrival. The Knights from the Jaguar and Eagle military orders await your command along with the Otomi warriors and the Cult of the Shorn Ones, all the remaining elite warriors of the empire are at your disposal."

"She looks just like Sofia Vergara!" Dante said in surprise.

"And the young one looks like Selena Gomez," Courtbey said, 'it's actually all a bit eerie."

"Your father thought that you would be more comfortable around physical forms that you recognized," the older priestess said casually in response to their statements, though she didn't look at them but rather continued to gaze at me.

"How can we understand you?" Jen asked.

"Yeah. We don't speak Aztec." Courtney added.

"My language is Nahuatl," she explained. "Your Alpha possesses the Gift of Tongues and you share in it through your mental links to him."

"The Gift of Tongues?" Will asked.

"The ability to communicate with the speakers of any mortal language. In essence, all language sounds the same to you and your words are comprehended by all."

"What are your names?" I asked her.

"I am Xochitl, high priestess of Texcatlipoca," stated the older woman with pride.

"Izel, my lord," the younger priestess said. "High priestess of Quetzalcoatl."

"Xochitl. Izel." I said, "I need no rest. I'm ready to move now."

"Now?"

"Is that a problem?"

"No, my lord." Izel replied. "But... Well, has something gone wrong?"

My pack and Buffy all flinched at her question, unsure how I would react. I did feel a spike of anguish but I wasn't so cruel as to take it out on this young girl, though she was probably older than me in actual years. I sighed as my feelings came boiling so towards the surface and replied, "my mother was just murdered before my eyes by a monster and I won't be able to avenge her for nearly five centuries. So yes, something is wrong. But I'd rather not talk about it and there isn't anything you can do anyway. So how about we just kill some Spaniards instead?"

"Yes, my lord."

For the first time in my life, true hate flowed through my veins and with this new dark power, inundated with bloodlust and completely lacking in empathy, I was eager to spill Spanish blood. I had always been disgusted with the deeds of the European colonists in the Americas when it came to their treatment of the native populations however it would be a lie to claim that to be what motivated my desire to slaughter the besieging conquistadors. I was disgusted by the idea of the Spanish infecting these lands and using Christianity as a justification for the genocide, rape, torture and the cultural annihilation of the native Mesoamerican people. Deep down inside I knew that I was not myself in that moment but I didn't really care.

I only thing on my mind.

"Have them assembled immediately," I said. "And then have the ceremonial weapons from the armory distributed to the common warriors. After that I want you to meet me in the palace menagerie for further instructions."

:..:

The Spanish sentry swatted at the side of his neck in response to a pinch from what he thought to be an insect bite. Since there was no pain he thought nothing of it and went back to watching the causeway for attack from the besieged Aztecs. In less than a minute, he noticed a numbness spreading out from the puncture site and became alarmed. Rising from his post he took three steps back towards the spaniard's bivouac before collapsing to ground as he clawed a this throat. The sentry tried to call out the alarm but found his vocal cords paralyzed by the numbness that was just then reaching his heart and lungs. The sentry choked out his last breathe totally unaware that all my of the other Spanish guards were experiencing the same symptoms from the blow darts, rolled over the skin of exotic poison dart frogs from the far south that the palace menagerie housed, that had been shot through blowpipes by swimmers that had stealthily approached.