Chapter 28: S**t Hits the Fan

As the smoke cleared from the explosion, Ian pulled a chunk of shrapnel from his neck growling out in pain. Peter was on the ground smirking at the sight, and Terry growled lowly at his carelessness. Toby had managed to jump back far enough to only take shrapnel to his arms when he shielded his face. He clenched his fist and hissed as blood began to trickle down his arms.

Ian looked up at the werewolf who interfered, and he walked past Terry and Zoe before he grabbed the werewolf by the neck. He slammed the werewolf's back against a nearby tree shattering the back of his skull. Ian looked at the other werewolves who were watching a great deal away. "Let that be a reminder to you all..." he said.

He looked back as Toby grabbed him from behind and leaped back ten feet into the air performing a suplex. He threw Ian over his head and drove his head into the ground leaving a rut. He rolled to the side and jumped back to his feet. Ian laid on the ground unconscious, and Toby kicked him for good measure.

Toby panted heavily, and he looked over at Zoe who had Peter in a sleeper hold. He ran up and delivered a brutal punch to his gut. Zoe fell back having the wind knocked out of her. "Easy Toby!" she gasped.

Peter was on his hands and knees vomiting blood, which he got kicked in the gut again. He rolled across the grass clutching his perforated and torn organs. Zoe and the others watched him get stomped on by Toby, which Bernie and Ulf arrived. Bernie rushed in to pull Toby off, and Ulf checked for signs of life.

"What the hell?" Toby shouted.

"We need him alive!" Bernie spoke sternly.

He glanced over at Ian as he silently started to sneak off literally with his tail between his legs. "Hey! The fuck are you going!?" he shouted before he began to pursue him.

"Follow him!" Bernie shouted.

Zoe ran off but Garou and Gunter took after her. Terry followed behind with his hands stuffed underneath his cloak itching to take out the two. "Toby! Be careful, he might be leading you into a trap!" He warned over the radio.

"Where are you headed?" Patches asked.

"We're on Powell heading towards the river" Zoe said.

"We're just going to spring a trap of our own! Let me handle it!"

"You've got him on the ropes! Take him out!" Tai said.

Two squads were flanking Ian, and he knew that they were funneling him towards the bridge. "Hey you got your trap ready?" Zoe asked.

"Yup, we're already at the Ross Island Bridge. Terrence is on the Health and Healing building with a Sniper rifle ready to go!" Patches said before there was a gunshot heard over his radio.

"That wasn't me. I ask another dude in the Mirabella to take out enemy snipers" Terrence said.

"Stay on Ian!" Tai yelled.

Zoe looked up to see a group of military jets fly overhead breaking the sound barrier. Windows nearby shattered. "What the hell are they doing!?" she yelled.

Ian had to stop midway on the bridge when he saw Patches 100 yards away with JLTV behind him. Toby stood a few yards back they looked up and saw a drone up above. Things sped down real slow as it shot a missile a split second before Terrence got his shot off. Toby and Ian jumped away from the path, but the shockwave from explosion hurled them off the road deck. Toby felt weightlessness and saw the underside of the Grey Cantilever truss bridge and the orange streak of sparks. He felt pain slamming into the river below, and his vision went blurry as he went into extreme shock.

He kicked towards the surface only to be struck in the head by a chunk of concrete debris knocking him out. Zoe instinctively ran to the edge and only stopped when the bridge jarred and groaned. "Zoe! We gotta get off the bridge!" Terry shouted.

"Hey! Toby and Ian are in the water! Are there any Merfolk in the area!?" Terrence shouted.

"What happened? I thought they are on our side?" Patches shouted.

"Don't forget these are humans hundreds of miles away in an office. They just push a joystick and button"

"They just fucked everything up!"

"No, this is a part of the plan"

"This isn't our plan!"

"No shit! Just remember who runs the military. The president can just issue an attack at will, and he doesn't have to give a damn about what we're doing. Even if it's a hospital, he can issue an attack. There are no consequences for him. He can just say it was an accident and none are the wiser"

"That's fucked up!"

"It is, but just think who advises the president? Hunters can tell him anything they want, and he will treat it like the gospel. They aren't on our side. They want us all dead. Only the Oregon National Guard is on our side"

•••

A news drone flew overhead filming the whole scene. Sasha and Lilian were glued to the TV monitor with their hands to their mouths. Sasha clenched her fist and slammed it into the wall. Her fangs grew larger as her rage began to spiral out of control. "Damn it!" she muttered.

Lilian glanced over at her and touched her shoulder. A Beta in cloak and mask approached them. "What happened!?" he asked.

"Toby's dead!" Sasha screamed.

"You don't know that! You've seen him in tougher situations" Lilian said.

Dr. Lovejoy stepped out of the train docked on the westbound platform, and she cleared her throat "That water is 45 degrees, it could give us extra time" she said.

Sasha calmed down and bit her lip. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Better start warming up some more fluid then..." Dr. Lovejoy mumbled as she walked off.

"Hopefully, Toby has not consumed too much energy, but yea he'll be alright" she said. She rubbed her shoulder and smiled. "I think that it would be nice for him to wake up in your warm paws don't you think?" she asked. Sasha nodded silently before Lilian smiled. "Don't worry...he got struck by lightning remember?" she said.

"Yea, but I don't think that's the same thing"

•••

Meanwhile in the river, the flood water reached the city spilling over the sea wall. Toby's body floated down the river slowly, and a boat sped up to his body. They shined a light onto his body and a merman jumped in to retrieve his body. They pulled him in, and one of them put their fingers on the top right of his chest and his lower left side before they sent an electric current through his body like a defibrillator.

Toby quickly coughed up water and blood and shivered violently. "Hey can you hear me!" Kamiko yelled as the boat sped off. He nodded weakly, before he looked at the sores in his arms from the shrapnel. They covered him up as they scanned the river for Ian. "We got to get him fixed up!"

"At least I don't gotta hole in my gut" he muttered.

"Yea, good thing you got that vest on" she said lightly.

Patches and the rest of his squad rendezvous with the boat at the flood water's edge where they picked up Toby and put him on a stretcher. Where they put him inside an armored vehicle and forded through the water back to dry ground. They drove him back to the tunnel where a hi-rail vehicle carried Toby off to the station.

He was laid down on a nice warm bed. "Hey, I need help!" the delta wolf yelled.

Dr. Lovejoy rushed up with an IV drip, and she plunged the needle into Toby's arm. "This should help him warm up" she said before she looked at Sasha hovering over her. "Give me a little room, I need to look him over" she said as she pulled the blanket off. Sasha saw the shrapnel wounds that covered his body, and she gasped. "Not bad...could be worse" the doctor said before she pulled a tray of tools closer to her.

She started probing around his wounds with a neodymium magnet tipped rod and plastic forceps. He snarled and growled at the pain, and Sasha stood by fighting her urge to protect her mate. She could hear every ping and thunk as metal hit the bottom of the metal pan. "I wouldn't be surprised it Ian took similar damage...I'm surprised they didn't get their legs blown off"

"His legs don't look too good either" Sasha muttered.

"They'll be good as new in a few hours. I just got to set all of his broken bones" The doctor said before a delta wolf came with a portable x-ray machine tethered to a cord. Another came with lead vests.

After the examination and adjustments were made, Toby was allowed to get some rest while Sasha tended to him. "Toby! How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Like I got blown up..."

She touched the side of his face and leaned in looking into his eyes. "I'm glad you're in one piece" she spoke softly before she kissed him on the lips. "Big bad"

Patches looked at Dr. Lovejoy worried. "How long do you think it will take for him to recover?" he asked.

Dr. Lovejoy put a thermometer into Toby's mouth and waited for a couple seconds. She pulled it out after it beeped. The read out said 86 degrees, and she looked at Joseph unsure of herself. "I'm guessing 5 hours, but...it all depends on the patient. The best thing for him is to keep him warm, so his body spends more energy healing than maintaining body heat" she said sternly.

She looked at Lilian coming over with extra blankets and touched his forehead. "Sasha...why don't you transform and crawl in to keep him warm"

She looked up at her surprised. "Are you sure it's alright? Can these beds hold the weight?"

The doctor laughed. "You aren't Toby's size. Don't you worry about it"

With this, Sasha wasted no time in crawling into bed with him and wrapped him in her arms. She transformed into her therian form hearing her clothes rip and stretch.

"I have more patients to treat" The doctor said before she walked across to check on a bandaged up soldier.

Lilian sighed piling more blankets on top of them. "Poor pup" she said before she touched her son's forehead. She looked over at Sasha and frowned. "Please make sure he doesn't yank his IVs and escape ...okay?" she asked.

She nodded, and Lilian smiled faintly. "Thank you" she said before she walked off.

Toby drifted into a dreamlike state thanks to his soft cuddly girlfriend. In his dream, he found himself wondering around in his therian form on familiar turf walking along the shore of a lake in the presence of a tall snowcapped volcanic mountain. He walked through some trees and picnic areas before he stopped to look around. He noticed his father in his therian form leaning against a log railing of dock looking out at his cabin on top of the mountain. Toby walked out onto the dock and sat beside him.

"You remembered this place after all this time..."

"Yea...I remember this place well"

"I'm not surprised. This was your favorite place to terrorize the campers, after all" His father said before he laughed to himself.

Toby was still in complete surprise sizing himself up with his father. "You and I...we're...the same size!?" he muttered.

Steele chuckled. "Of course we are...well you need to pack on a few pounds but Ja. But, Why are you still shocked about this?" he asked as he patted him on the shoulder.

"I don't see you that often"

"Well I'm surprised that girlfriend of yours don't pound it into your head like she does whenever she talks to me. She's really funny that woman is"

"Yea well...she still mentions it here or there. I just don't pay attention"

"Ja, You do need to work on your focus some more. Speaking of making improvements..." His father said before he turned towards him. "I've been watching how you work. You're not really utilizing all of your resources. I'm disappointed that you starting playing Ian's game. You aren't there to prove who's stronger. You're there to incapacitate or kill him. Use your tools; don't be afraid to ask for help"

Toby frowned looking away with guilt. "I'm sorry...I just didn't want to be seen as a coward"

"I really don't get your reasoning behind that. Ian has done a lot of cowardly things. Don't forget what he did to Sasha. If it weren't for Gunter and Garou aiding in her escape, things would have been different..." he said before Toby interrupted.

"What do you mean? Why would they do that?"

"Well, she's their half-brother's mate. They are there just to keep taps on Ian and Peter. It so happens that they align themselves with Amarok. I think deep down Amarok wants you to succeed. She's not evil...neither are your brothers. They just saw the terrible things humans can do for us, but they can see the good things. They have not killed any innocent lives"

"Well, why did they leave?"

"I don't know...I guess they thought I forgot about their family that got killed or that I should be swayed by murders to become just like Ian. I don't know Toby. What I do know is that they object to Ian's tactics"

"What if I give them the option to join me?"

"Do it. It shouldn't hurt!" his father said as he looked out onto the lake. "I'm going to tell you something else. About raising your own pups"

Toby cocked his head and stared at him surprised. "Why are you bringing this up?"

"You know why...you know nobles have pups at a young age. I got this advice when I was old enough to drink. That wasn't a coincidence either" he said before he laughed. "It's a lot more different playing with pups than it is raising one. Once that little whelp has their chords cut, they are going to cling to you for couple decades. Even when they leave the den they won't stray far"

"Okay? Is that all?"

"Oh no...I'm just getting started. Stay here in the aether for a while and let your physical body rest"

•••

Meanwhile in the city, Zoe was following Ian's scent through a long park inside the Portland State University campus. The combined scent of Human and Ian's blood was growing stronger, and she stopped in front of a large tree looking over at a building bearing the sign Branford Price Millar Library. She found a human femur on the ground in dismay before she looked up and saw Ian up on a branch leaning against the tree sleeping.

She growled to herself lowly. "I found him guys...I'm at the PSU library" she spoke into her receiver.

"On my way" Patches said quickly.

Ian looked down at her before he smirked. "You don't think that you can take me on your own do you?" he asked.

"I saw what happened on the bridge. I know you aren't sleeping because you got bored" she said.

"No...I got tired after eating all these students"

She looked at him skeptically. "Why don't you get your fat ass down here, and we'll settle this. Or you're just talking shit like you always do. You're scared aren't you?"

He glared at her before he growled. "Stupid Bitch!" he muttered before he jumped out of the tree. "You need to be taught a lesson!" he yelled.

She waved him on grinning with blood lust. "Bring it Grandpa!" she yelled. Bernie walked out from the corner of the building, and Ian looked up at him biting his lip calculating his next move. "Wow, really? Why are you hesitating?"

She charged him, and he dodged her punch countering with a swift knee to the stomach. She grabbed his leg and spun him around slamming his back into the tree. He laughed picking himself up. "You have no idea what's been going on have you?" he asked.

She clenched her fist and growled. "I don't care! I'm tired of listening to your fucking talk!" she yelled charging him. He jumped over her, and she threw her weighted chain at his ankle snagging him. Her feet dug into the soil as his forward motion stopped. He caught himself from his fall and grabbed the chain. She reached in with a free hand grabbing a pepper grenade and threw it at him. She charged him once more as he picked it up. He threw it back only to have it blow up 3 inches from his hand. He grabbed his face in pain.

"Zoe! On your 6!" Bernie yelled as he was held up by Gunter.

Zoe jumped abruptly to the right just in time to miss being hacked from behind by Garou. He laughed manically. "Cheating is not fun is it?" he asked.

Zoe reached into her cloak realizing she ran out of grenades, so she pulled out a gun from her thigh holster managing to fire a bullet grazing Garou's neck. He smirked evilly rubbing his wound before looking at the blood in his hand. "I never met a wolf your size who relied on guns before" he said.

"Zoe!" Bernie yelled before being struck from behind.

Zoe saw Ian try to escape, and she shot at Ian before Garou grabbed the gun. Zoe struggled against him as Garou placed the gun over her heart. "I wonder how good your vest is..." he muttered before he noticed movement reflect off the glass. He jumped away from her and caught the shaft of Clare's scythe much to the teenage succubus's surprise. "Wow, you chose to play hero instead of chase after the bigger bad?"

He pointed the gun at her before Zoe sucker punched him with a right hook to the side of the head from behind. Gunter came from behind and put her into a sleeper hold, and Bernie rushed in. "Hold it you two! He's gone!" he shouted.

Garou and Gunter eased up, and Zoe dropped to her knees light headed. Clare pulled her scythe back and jumped back staring at them in confusion. "Bernie? What's going on?" she asked.

"Those two are working for us"

"What!?"

"Could have fooled me..." Zoe muttered as she stood back up. "You're Toby's brothers right?"

They said nothing, but Bernie stepped closer. "Peter's dead...I thought I could ask him where the bombs went. Do you know where they are?"

They looked at each other and grimaced. "Mom's hidden them around somewhere just in case Dad really was proven wrong" Garou said.

"What do you mean proven wrong?"

"What do you think? Does the treaty of Versailles ring a bell? Don't play stupid! We all know what's coming after Ian's and Peter's fuck up" Gunter said.

"Does she think that having nukes is going to make them want to give us a fair shake?"

"Do you think they'd give us a fair shake anyway?"

"But you still haven't answered the question. All that Steele has said was that he saw us capable in coexisting with humans"

"Well, that's assuming that the ones in power are not corrupt. Mom is watching everything closely, and she's not too pleased with what happened on the bridge" Garou said.

Bernie sighed and looked towards his daughter. "You think she won't push the button prematurely?"

"No, she's not going to blow up her whole arsenal. She's already a step ahead of you all. You are going to fail with diplomacy, but she'll give you a chance to try it"

"No Garou, diplomacy will work. Just give it time"

"We've already ran out of time" He said before he walked off with his brother.

Bernie sighed before he reached in his cloak. "Here!" he said throwing a protein bar at her. "For your strength" he said.

She caught the bar and munching on it savagely barely taking the time to rip open the wrapper. Bernie looked towards Clare and threw her a bar also. "We need to check the library for survivors" he said.

Ulfr rushed right up to them and cut them off. "We got bigger problems to deal with. They have taken over Big Pink"

"There's still people here?" Clare asked.

Bernie nodded before he turned to Zoe. "Wait here for your squad, I'm going inside to check for survivors" he said as he walked through a broken ground floor window.

"Zoe...where's Toby?" Clare asked.

"He's hurt"

"Will he be okay?"

"Yea, he'll be fine" Zoe muttered before she looked up at Patches. "Where were you!?"

"Hey! It's not like I can go around here without getting shot at or being attacked!" he shouted before he looked towards Clare. "Hey...how are you?" he said seductively.

She rolled her eyes at him, and Ulfr laughed at him. "You think you have a chance with her?" he teased.

"Like I'm not going to give it a try"

"Yea, she's not into little Gary-stus with an ego" Zoe jabbed.

Patches growled at her. "Call me little again...I dare you!" he grumbled.

Percy's voice crackled over the radio. "Hey, how's everything going?"

"Where the hell were you?" Zoe shouted.

"I had to get a hold of my dad. It's really hard to do that in a bunker you know...not to mention cell phones are down"

"I'm sorry" she whimpered.

There was a commotion going on in the background on Percy's end, and Zoe could barely make it out. "They're throwing hostages out the window!", "No, they're executing them!"

Zoe looked over at Patches and Clare. "Come on!" she shouted before she darted off down the street.

"Hey wait!" Ulfr shouted.

"Did they leave?" Bernie asked over the radio.

"Yea"

"Let them go on ahead"

"We're a couple blocks away!" Terry shouted.

Four soldiers approached them with their guns to their side as Bernie walked back out of the broken window. They saluted him recognizing Ulfr and his rank. "At ease" Bernie said before they relaxed their stance. "Do you have any news?"

One of them handed him a tablet with a map dotted with markers. "These are areas where chemical weapons have been implemented" he said.

"Alright, can I send this to all the wolves?"

"How do you plan on that?"

Bernie took a picture with a button before he fiddled with some buttons on his mask. "And sent"

"What you got augmented reality in those masks?"

"Who doesn't?" Ulfr asked.

"I just didn't think you're have that kind of tech"

"Why is that? Do you think we are too primitive to utilize modern technology?" Ulfr raised his voice taking offense to the soldier's comment.

"Whoa, no offense, but I never met real werewolves before" the soldier said.

A little girl wondered down the sidewalk aimlessly while dragging a teddy bear not much smaller than her behind crying and sobbing with every step. Ulfr approached her. "Hey there...what's your name?"

The little girl sniveled. "My mommy's gone!" she cried.

"You're a brave girl walking around out here by yourself"

"I want my mommy back..." she wept as she wiped the tears with her blood soaked hands.

Ulfr looked towards Bernie uneasily. "Where do we take her?"

"I don't know...we can't take her far with the quarantine in place. She's got werewolf blood on her already ...Let me think, let me think" He muttered as he rubbed his temple. "We could take her to Washington Park Station. Lilian and Dr. Lovejoy both have some experience with grief counseling"

"Aren't they busy with the wounded?"

"She's psychologically wounded...I was only naming a few names off the top of my head. I know that there are others who can step in"

"Right" he said before she picked her up.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Just hold on...I'm going to take you someplace safe" he said before he ran off.

She held her arms around his neck and closed her eyes tightly. "How are you going so fast!?" she asked.

"I'm a good werewolf"

She gasped. "You're a werewolf?" she asked.

"Not all of us are bad"

"Oh, okay"

•••

Meanwhile, Toby was still in a coma like state, while Sasha remained in the bed having not moved a muscle since she got there. In his dream, he was given life advice and one-on-one sparring match; however, once Steele got knocked down, he let out a prideful laugh as he picked himself up. Fog started to form offshore and began to radiate out and expand towards the shore.

"You're getting better at this...I would have a hard time telling whether your or Zoe would take out Ian, but if I had to choose, it would be the both of you to take him down...as a team. The Alphas past and present will be with you as will I" he said before he looked back at the fog. "Well, looks like this is where I leave you"

They started to fade in the fog before Toby grabbed his arm. Steele frowned at him as his son gripped him tightly. "Father! I can't!"

Steele reached up slapping him on the shoulder firmly. "Machen mich stolz,Sohn (Make me proud, son)" Steele said before everything went white.

Toby started to drift out of his dream state having been roused to the sensations of his mategiving him a back massage along with her body heat underneath the blanket. His back was still sore after falling onto it from over a hundred feet into the water. His eyes remained shut, but he could feel the comfort and love Sasha was pouring into him.

He heard a roar of a motor drawing near, and he moved around before he looked up at Sasha. "How long was I out for?"

Sasha looked up at the digital clock display. "I dunno"

The engine noise stopped before a couple loud opening and shutting of doors echoed through the station. There were two sets of footsteps, one with long strides and another a third as long. When they came in, the little girl looked around looking for someone before she pointed towards Joseph sitting on the floor eating a sandwich. "So is that the king of werewolves?" she asked.

Joseph raised an eyebrow and looked over at Lilian who was giggling at the little girl's question. She approached Toby and stuck a thermometer into his mouth.

"Is he all healed up?" Sasha asked while Toby's blood pressure and pulse was being checked.

The thermometer beeped before she input the data into her tablet. She shown Sasha the graph charts, which she did not know exactly what it meant only that his body temperature was going up, but it was not quite normal yet. "He's very close. I'd say that he'll be healed up in fifteen minutes at this rate"

"I mean, his wounds...are they..." Sasha muttered before Lilian lifted up his arm to show pink new skin where his wounds once were.

"I would suggest that he get something to eat to replenish the energy he lost from being in survival mode" his mother said.

He sat up and rubbed his shoulder. "Where's my armor?" he muttered with slurred speech before he looked over at the little girl. "What's with the kid?" he asked.

Ulfr looked back at the little girl and frowned. "Her mother has been taken"

Joseph sighed looking over at Lilian who was leaning against the wall watching Molly solemn and heartbroken. "Lilian...are you alright?" he asked.

"No...No I'm not" she said before she looked towards Toby worried. "Once that morphine wears off, he's going to lose it again. I just don't know by how much"

"What makes you think it's going to be any different than before?" Joseph asked.

"I don't think he comprehends what's going on. It's one thing to see a body, but it's a whole other thing to...understand the life behind it"

Toby looked over at the monitors on the wall. The media was showing the images of the violence and horrors that had happened since he was knocked out. His senses were now returning and he could hear soldiers moaning and gasping for breath. He did not see them, but he could smell them. Five minutes later, a soldier was brought into the station through the elevator on a stretcher. He was placed on a bed on another side of Toby, but although Toby could not see the man behind the screen he could hear blood drip against the pavement. The doctor followed behind carrying a cooler, which once she sat it down, ice shifted around inside.

"P-p-please...I have a...a wife and kids..." he shouted.

"We're low on blood, and I'm not sure we can save him through conventional medicine..." the delta wolf addressed the doctor.

"Listen now...I have a blood bags that contain a powerful virus that can speed up your healing, but I have to warn you that this will turn you into a werewolf as a side effect. I don't have any more untainted O positive blood" the doctor said.

The soldier wheezed and started to hyperventilate and shake in the bed before he grabbed her arm. "Do it!" he said through his teeth.

The doctor looked towards a delta wolf and frowned. "Are you ready?"

"Yea..." She muttered.

Ulfr kept the little girl from wondering around the curtain. "Stay here!" he spoke harshly.

Lilian pulled the IV from Toby's arm and flashed her flashlight into his eye checking his pupils. "Can you hold this for me?" she asked the little girl as she handed her a reflex hammer. "You sure made of tough stuff kid...just like my son" she said before rubbed her shoulder.

"You're a mommy wolf?"

"This werewolf right here is my son" She said before the little girl looked at Sasha who immediately began to point at Toby. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine...I'm just going to..." he said trying to get up before Sasha and Lilian forced him down.

"You are going to sit here until Dr. Lovejoy and I decide when your body has recovered" Lilian said before he growled. "No! Don't you growl at me! You just sit here and let your body recover from your concussion" she said before she looked at Sasha who was growling into Toby's ear.

"She's knows best...I don't want you going out there less than one hundred percent" she said viciously.

"Toby...if you go out there right now, you won't win! Have faith in the army. Zoe's got things handled!" his mother added.

Sasha held Toby tightly as she watched the monitor, and the little girl observed them attentively. On the screen shown a split screen with footage of a huge mill complex on fire, footage of a Shipping yard with a boat on fire, footage of a railroad yard near an orange through arch bridge with hundreds of overturned and damaged overturned freight cars littering the yard, which the banner said "War spreads into Eugene, Seattle, and Vancouver B.C."

She buried her face into his neck. "I wish that I could wake up from all of this..." she said.

•••

A couple hours later, Toby's stomach started growling again, and he hunched over whimpering from all the pain. "I guess all this healing has taken a lot of energy out of me...got any more num nums?" he asked.

Sasha's tail wagged, and she licked his cheek tenderly. "For you? Of course!" she said cheerfully before she gracefully leaped out of the bed to walk over to a plastic bag. Toby tried to see what was inside the bag until Sasha reverted to her human form. She pulled out a plate with napkins covering it and smiled at him evilly. "The food is in my hands big bad"

He looked at her surprised. "You've mastered shifting pretty well...really well" he said.

"Would it be weird to say that I can't turn into my anthro form at will?"

"Uh...kinda..." he muttered as she sat the bag on the bed.

She untied the bag smiling cheerfully. "I thought you'd be hungry...so eat up dear. You'll need your strength" she said before his stomach growled again. She patted his shoulder and looked into his eyes deeply. "You better gorge yourself mister" she said before she nudged him.

He opened the styrofoam container and pulled out a fork to binge on Chow mein. He looked around confused before his mother popped in through the curtain. "What happened to the little girl?"

"She's with Dr. Lovejoy" She said as she sat down another sack of food beside them. "Everyone has been in Big Pink fighting the werewolf horde...Ian's inside there. They said they are getting the upper hand on things"

"What does that mean?" he muttered.

"It means they can start to get inside the building"

"He noticed the time displayed on the reader board said, "8:37 p.m.", which Toby sighed. "It's getting late..." he said before stretched.

She frowned and whimpered. "So, you're not going to eat?"

"Uh no, I'm going to eat" he muttered after looking up at his mother timidly.

His mother placed more food in front of him and smiled. "That's right! You are staying here"

He looked over at his gear before the little girl walked up to him with her arms behind her back. "Are you going to turn into a werewolf?" she asked innocently.

"Yea..." he said slowly as finished off the last of his pot sticker.

"Can I see it?"

"Why? You already watched her do it" he said pointing at Sasha.

Her cheeks puffed up and grumbled to herself. "No I didn't!"

"Molly, please don't bug him while he's eating. Werewolves are cranky while they are hungry" his mother advised her.

"Okay..." she said in defeat as her head sank and her arms dropped slowly.

"Hey, Molly! Do you want to watch a video of him transforming?" Sasha asked as she reached around for her phone.

She looked up with an eager grin and she rushed over to crowd up next to her. "Lemmie see! Lemmie see!" she shouted.

"What video are you going to show her?" he asked as he leaned back. "There better not be any werewolf junk in there!" he whispered.

"Why would I film that?"

"Who only wants a top up shot of a werewolf transformation?"

"Just trust me...I got a good angle on this shot"

He sighed heavily and went back to eating Orange Chicken. After the video, Molly stared at him totally amazed. He cocked his head and muttered with his mouth full, "What?"

"Your eyes...they're glowing"

"Glowing?"

His mother giggled as Sasha looked into his eyes and smirked. "Oh wow...they are glowing"

"No they're not!" He raised his voice in protest.

She swatted his shoulder and grinned at him. "You all werewolves have a special membrane lining in their eyes that reflect light to help them see in the dark better" she said before she looked over at him amused. "My son has a bad habit of transforming at the dinner table"

He finally caught on and smirked. "How are my teeth?" he asked before he lifted his lip to expose a fang.

"Wow!" Molly shouted with excitement.

He kneeled down and looked into her eyes intensely. "Are you afraid of me? You know I'm a big bad wolf after all?" he said.

Molly looked up at him cheerfully. "You're a big nice wolf" she said.

The doctor walked up to Toby and handed him his armor. "I'm satisfied with your recovery. You're free to go" he asked.

He began to put his armor and mask on while Molly stared at him. "Scary..." she said before she hid behind the bed. He laughed before he looked up at Sasha.

"You want to walk with me to the end of the tunnel?"

"Is it safe?"

Lilian sighed and started walking ahead of them. "I'm coming with you too" she said before she stopped to look back at them. "I need some time away from all this death and gore"

"So it's okay then?"

"You'll be fine!" Toby said as he jumped off the platform. He looked back at her and smirked. "You coming?"

Sasha flinched as she left her confused state and scrambled after him. "Wait up!" she shouted. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and buried her nose into his arm. "Please don't get hurt again" she spoke softly.

"I'll try my best" He muttered.

His mother looked back at them and smiled. "I hope your mask still works properly"

Toby lowered his mask and began to toggle the on switch. The Raspberry Pi logo popped up over the AR visor with strings of code streaming through. "I don't see any error messages..." he rambled before the program booted up. "Seems fine to me"

"I can't believe all that water didn't short it out" his mother murmured to herself.

"Yea...those masks must be super expensive" Sasha muttered.

"Probably" Toby added.

Once they got to the end of the tunnel, Tai was lying face down between the tracks bleeding from his nose and mouth and covered in blisters. Lilian gasped and went to his aid. "Tai!" she shouted before he groaned.

"Lilian, stay back!" Tai mumbled before he gasped for breath. "It burns!" he said as he grabbed his chest.

"What's going on? Why does he smell like garlic?" Sasha asked.

"Mustard Gas" Lilian replied.

Toby stared out into the city welling with anger. "Are you the only one who made it out?" he asked.

Tai said nothing, but Sasha immediately looked towards Toby. "What do you mean? Didn't they all have their masks on?" She asked.

"Toby!?" Bernie voice crackled from Toby's mask. Toby remained silent, and Tai coughed and hacked up fluids. "I'm at the Chinese Garden, I just pulled out some of our wolves from the underground...one is still missing" he said.

Tai grabbed Toby's mask and gasped for breath. "He's the one...poisoned us" he said.

Toby looked back at him and snarled. "What was his purpose?"

Tai looked away. "We were changing the filters in our masks, and that bastard waited for Jean to take his mask off before he stole them and gassed us. Ulfr stayed behind to help, but I took after the traitor. I thought I was fine until I got out to Burnside. This is as far as I got before I hurt too much move"

"How bad does it hurt?" Lilian asked.

"Ten...definitely a ten" He muttered with a hoarse voice.

Toby began to transform into his Therian form, and he was about to take a step forward when the cloud moved just enough to expose him to the moonlight. He stopped and looked back at them and snarled. "I want you all to stay back...I'm going to try something"

Sasha glared at him intensely. "What are you going to do? You better not be doing something stupid!"

He looked back at her and wagged his tail. "Extremely!" he replied before he looked back at the moon. "While we were training in the mountains, Zoe and I discovered a new form. It's got all the perks Therian form without the hindrances of size and lack of mobility...only problem is...it's very unstable. We never dared to try it again because of it"

She frowned and rubbed her chest over her heart as a heavy uneasiness settled there. "What do you mean by unstable?"

Toby growled out as he felt some slight twinges of pain until the moon was fully unveiled, this was when he collapsed onto the ground. "Son of a bitch!!!" he screamed in a scary tone.

"Toby! Don't!" she shouted before Lilian grabbed her.

"Don't break his concentration...if he doesn't get this right it'll injure him" Lilian said before she glared at him. "You can chew his ass out later" she muttered.

Tai watched on curiously. "He's shrinking?" he muttered.

The news drones were hovering overhead filming Toby's transformation while he remained on all fours in severe pain. "This fucking hurts more than before!!" he yelled. He felt like he was on fire. The street lights above flickered and then the light bulbs exploded.

The wind picked up and blew at their backs, and their eardrums popped. Lilian's jaw dropped noticing subtle differences from a simple reversion. He was shrinking down however he retained most of his fur and lost his muzzle. His eyelids including haw were pitch black nearly hiding the whites of his eyes completely. The tip of his nose down to his nostrils remained black and lupine like while the bridge of his nose remained human. His lupine ears stood erect on top of his head while his tail stayed between his legs full with fur.

He stood up a foot taller with the added height due to his digitigrade feet, and he looked at his padded humanlike hands before he looked back at them with his almost hairless face asides from his sideburns.

Sasha blushed experiencing awe and attraction to this new form. "Wow...looking good hun...what's this form called?"

He held up his hand flexing it, and it bulked up to the size of his therian form. "Ookami" he said with his deep monstrous voice. He relaxed it, and it atrophied back down symmetrical with the other arm.