Attacked
It started with a loud ringing in Roxanne’s ears. Noises and bangs disturbed her sleep. Roxanne twisted and turned on her bed, unwilling to be disturbed by the sounds which took away her peace.
“”
Myriads of sounds all humbled together continued to haunt Roxanne until she had had enough of it. She opened her eyes and slowly rose up from bed. It was early, not even 7 am, yet she was already being disturbed.
It wasn’t Rita that woke her up though, neither was it her mother… It was a strange noise that disturbed her sleep.
“…A dream…?” She muttered to herself, still unsure of where the sound came from, or whether it was even real, to begin with. Since she just woke up, her senses were dull, and so she decided to return to bed since it was still early.
“Guahhhhhhh!!!!”
“Kyaaaaahhhh”
“Hahahahahahaha”
Roxanne heard sounds again. This time it belonged to people. Various noises with both fear and thrill mixed. Where it originated from, she had no idea.
“What the hell is happening?” Roxanne muttered, rousing herself from the singer which was clouding her face.
She left her room and walked to Rita’s bedroom to ask if she was also hearing the noise and unpleasant mix of various conflicting sounds.
“Rita, it’s me… Open up!” Roxanne knocked.
As her hand hit the door, she found that the door was already ajar. For the first time, Roxanne decided to use her heightened senses, focusing more on her nose and found out that Rita was not in the house. She raised her nose and smelled even deeper.
“She was here less than an hour ago… She left her room for… The door?” Roxanne muttered.
Suddenly Roxanne’s eyes widened. An expression of shock was written all over her face. What was this that she sensed? It felt unreal, yet Roxanne could feel it vividly. Now that she had increased the scope of her senses she could feel it, what was going on beyond the door.
It all started to make sense to her, why she suddenly woke up, why Rita’s door was not closed properly… Because Rita was in a hurry to go somewhere, to leave the house. The reason for that, Roxanne was beginning to know.
Slowly, Roxanne walked to the door. Her body trembled as she approached it, raising her shaky hands to open it. As she drew nearer and focused on the door, the noise grew louder. She could hear it more clearly now.
Screams of pain, tears of agony, laughs of enjoyment, groans of struggle, cries for help… The conflicting mesh between the two seared through her brain, but Roxanne kept herself together and bravely opened the door, prepared for what she would see when she did.
Roxanne’s eyes widened as her mouth trembled, tears formed as she looked at the sight before her. It was chaos… It was horrible, terrible… It was war!
“H-How… How is this happening…?!” Roxanne mumbled in confusion.
What she had seen was the sight of battle. A scene of complete anarchy, where two sides fought and killed and fought even more. On the floor were fallen, bloodied bodies. She looked at the bodies and recognized most of the faces, save a few… Those were the villagers, members of the pack.
“A-Are they… Dead?!” Roxanne muttered.
“H-Help m-me…” Someone muttered.
She couldn’t find his exact location due to the many other voices she was hearing. She looked around but saw no one bearing the voice. All she could see was conflict, a one-sided slaughter. The perpetrators were none other than humans… Hunters, and the victims… Werewolves.
“Die!”
“Wretched devils!”
“W-Wait, please stop!”
“Noooo”
“Take this!”
“You monsters!”
Roxanne heard the sounds getting more and more as her head pointed and her heart raced. Rita had told her about it, but to think it would be this horrible, the bloodshed.
Some werewolves fought back, and Roxanne watched from a distance how they savagely attacked the humans who held guns and dressed like genuine hunters, predators of the wild.
The humans wore masks, hiding their faces from everyone present. They wore camouflage which was colored in white and black, though it was now stained with the red hue of blood.
“Keukkk!!” One of the humans let out as a werewolf struck him down.
“Filthy devils!” He muttered, before passing on.
Roxanne walked forward and kept moving straight ahead, taking in the mayhem about her. Her most throbbed and for some unknown reason she felt stiff, as though she couldn’t do anything but keep marching forward.
However, that all changed when she saw something that made her body jolt.
She saw Rita, or rather… She knew it was Rita, though it looked nothing like her. What stood there was a brown humanoid wolf, taller than the rest of the Hunters that surrounded it, yet weakened. It slavishly launched out its claws, hitting some of the Hunters, but missing most of them. In return, those who were lucky enough to come out unscathed shot at the bipedal wolf with their rifles.
“Arrrrr” The wolf let out in pain.
They fired one more round, leaving the whimpering and wounded wolf on her knees. Roxanne could tell by the scent alone, the will was Rita. With her golden eyes and her gait, Roxanne could recognize her best friend, even in wolf form.
“R-Rita….” Roxanne muttered.
Her friend was in trouble. She was surrounded by armed Hunters, weakened to the point of kneeling before them. She didn’t know why, but Rita couldn’t fight back. Perhaps it was the effect of the Wolfsbane she had heard so much of.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Roxanne launched herself in Rita’s direction. She was still confused, she still didn’t understand what was happening, why hunters were in the village to begin with, why so many people were suffering… The reason for so much pain… She could not comprehend. But that didn’t matter now.
She didn’t need to think about those things, so she brushed them away from her mind. There was only one thing that mattered, and that was her friend Rita!
“Awooooo!!!” Roxanne howled, still moving rapidly to save her friend.
Suddenly, her ears slowly morphed into that of a wolf’s, and out of her mouth, proceeded fangs. Her nails grew sharper and brown fur began to cover her hand and legs. A tail popped out from her back and her body felt much lighter, much more powerful than before.
She didn’t know how and when it happened. She was never able to succeed in it until that crucial moment, Partial Wolf Transformation!
She wasn’t fully transformed into a wolf, like Rita, but she was partly there. A portion of her hands, from her elbow downward we’re covered in brown fur, with her hands which were already partially shaped like paws, with claws on them. The same went for her leg, from her knee downward, she had taken on the Wolf features. Her ear was wolf-like, and her blue eyes glowed, having the identical look to that of a wolf. Her hair was no longer blue, but brown, taking on the colour of her fur. Her tail wagged, moving to and fro to show she was agitated.
She went on all fours and closed the distance between her and Rita in an instant.
The Hunters realised something was coming, and they hurriedly pointed their guns in Roxanne’s direction. However, before they could react, or even think of pulling the trigger, it was too late! Roxanne leaped forward and used her claws to cleanly slash them all into shreds, not showing hesitation nor compassion, just raw animalistic rage.
She huffed and panted as she stared at Rita, who looked at her with surprise as she saw the bloodied corpse of the Hunters laying at her feet.
“R-Roxy…?!” Rita muttered with her deep wolf voice.
Roxanne wanted to stay and talk, but she couldn’t afford to do so. More Hunters were beginning to gather around them. Besides, others were killing off the other members of the pack. She remembered what Rita said.
Not everyone had mastered Partial Transformation, most of them had not. They were helpless and with the weakness of Wolfsbane possibly being at play, they were powerless. Even Rita, with her skill, was subdued. She had to help, one way or the other.
Thankfully, in her wolf form, her mind was clearer than before. She had let go of all unnecessary thoughts and now focused on the targets before her. They drew closer, holding their weapons and glaring at her with hate and caution.
“How could they… How could they do this?!” Roxanne’s anger increased.
“I won’t forgive you, I won’t forgive any of you!”
Thoughts of the villagers she saw all around her and their pleas for help while the sadistic hunters laughed, played through her mind.
It was time to reverse the situation. She refused to be prey to these people. As a Wolf, she was an apex predator… And all other predators in her domain were subject to her.
“I’m going to kill you all!” She let out a bloodthirsty growl as she glared at them with her glowing blue eyes.
The hunt began!