Spectrum #8: To The Wolves (Part 2 of 2)

New Logo. Also, this chapter is long as shit.

Chapter 8: To The Wolves, Part 2 of 2

Maria managed to wake everyone else up, readying all of their weapons as they spoke to each other quietly. Everyone was still groggy from only getting a couple hours of sleep, but that wasn't as big of a deal as of now. They stood in a small circle a couple of feet apart from each other as the crimson eyes stared at them from the darkness of the forest.

Lily's scimitar was trembling in her hands, she was frightened beyond all belief by this. “Do you think they're hostile?” She asked, Maria eyes scanned her surroundings before replying. “They're Riftfallen, they'll probably be more than just hostile.” Maria responded, clutching onto her sword as the beasts began to growl, walking into the clearing almost completely in unison. They looked like wolves, yet looked different to them as well. Their eyes were glowing blood red, they were slightly bigger and their fur was jet black.

One of them howled, and the wolves began to rush at the group of students, their speed was insanely quick and they closed the 30 foot gap almost instantly. One of them leaped at Maria, slashing hard with his enhanced claws, Maria barely sidesteps to one side as she swung at it. But she wasn't close enough so she missed. She suddenly heard Gale shout. “BEHIND YOU!” She quickly ducked her head down and a second wolf leaped overhead, seemingly trying to go for her throat.

Maria took a couple of short hops backward, lowering her stance as she inspected the area. There was an entire pack of these wolves. If she had to guess, there'd be about 8-10 of them total. She saw one of the wolves leap at Jonah, slashing at his back hard enough to slice his coat. He cried in pain, spinning around and cracking his shield upside the wolves head, it leaped backward as another wolf pounced onto him, he lifted his sword just in time and the wolf bit onto it, thrashing before he quickly kicked it away.

Erika swung her large axe to try and hit the wolves or get them to back off, but they were just too quick for her and would constantly leap backward so her swings would miss. She had so much momentum with each swing that she had to slow herself down and wind up for another hit constantly. She missed a swing and a wolf launched at her, pushing her onto her back as it tried to bite her neck. She punched into its throat and grabbed it by the head. It snarled and bit at her, but its strength was tremendous, her hands began to tremble while she held back its head, even if it was getting closer.

Suddenly, a bloody sword plunged straight through its mouth and all life faded from it, The sword retracted and Maria gently kicked it to the side. Erika stood back up, patting Maria once on the shoulder as a sign of thanks. The wolves began to surround the group once again. “There's too many of them..” Lily said, she felt like she was being overwhelmed. Maria looked at the floor before coming up with an off the wall plan. She ran past the wolf pack completely as they waited to attack, before swinging her sword and smacking the side of it against the tree to make a very loud ring.

“HEY YOU BASTARDS! COME AND GET ME ALREADY!” She said, shouting. Some of their ears perked at that and began to slowly trod towards her. “Guys, I'll have some of them chase me so you can fight the rest.” She shouted over to her allies, but Lily looked over at her with concern. “W-what?! Why? You're just put yourself in danger!” Lily said, worried as she kept her scimitar ready for another attack. “Just trust me...” Maria said, smacking the sword a couple more times before turning around and running deeper into the forest. Suddenly, 5 of the wolves ran off to go after her while the rest stayed.

The five wolves began to charge at the students again, slashing Lily on the arm as she quickly swung her blade at the wolf, it sliced it's face as black blood began to drip from it. The wolf yelped and backed away, but suddenly a second one attacked Lily from the side, biting firmly into her shoulder. She screamed and fell to the ground, looking up at the wolf as it didn't want to let go. Suddenly, a bladed whip snapped around it's throat, lifting it and dragging it away. Gabriel slung the wolf aside before cracking his whip again to slash at it. “Enough from you!” He shouted at the wolf, Lily saw another one charge at him, but she grabbed her blade with her uninjured arm and swung up at it. He had so much momentum that he got immediately decapitated by her blade, his body careening to the floor along with his separate head.

She sighed a bit of relief and noticed that Jonah was being assaulted by three other wolves, each one leaping to slash at him. His arms and legs getting covered up as he tried to protect his face and torso. “Gabriel! Help Jonah!” She shouted between her breaths, Gabriel nodded and went after the wolves, awkwardly swinging his whip to lash into one of their backs, getting their attention. Lily stood back up and ran over to Jonah, kicking one in the shoulder before taking a few wide swings at them, they started to back off as she helped Jonah onto his feet. He began to pant and shiver as he looked at the Platinum blonde standing in front of her. “T-thanks..” He said, looking at the four remaining wolves.

Erika continues to swing at the wolves when they back off of Jonah, managing to get a lucky swing and smash straight into one, turning it into a pile of black blood and gore on the floor of the forest clearing. “And that's why I picked the axe..” She said quietly, knowing that she might not hit all the time, but as soon as she does, that would be the last attack she'd need to use. She turned to fight the three remaining wolves as they began to try and gang up on Lily.

Lily swung her scimitar at the wolves as they lunged at her, even though she was able to slash at them, none of the cuts seem to go deep enough to stop them from coming at her, Erika ran after on and swung wildly at it, causing Lily to jump back in a panic from the sight of the huge axe. “C-careful with that axe, Erika!” Lily shouted, ducking to the side as a wolf leaped at her. “Sorry!” Erika shouted, swinging at one that just lept at her and cleaving it in two. The other wolves didn't even want to run away in fear, or even flinch at seeing one of their pack mates get taken out like that. Is this insanity an effect of being rift fallen? Another one pounced Lily, slashing it's sharp claws against Lily's face right across one of her eyes.

Lily screamed in pain, covering her eye with one hand as she felt warm blood seep between her fingers, she held it tight, keeping the blade in her other hand. Though the pain felt so sharp she could barely even focus with the other one. “Lily!” Jonah shouted, Running over to assist her. Gabriel, who was also just nearby quickly whipped it, the blades along the whip digging deep into it right as Jonah slammed his foot into it's side, pushing it away and causing the blades to tear him to shreds on the ground.

“Are you okay!?” He shouted, trying to check Lily's eye, but her hand was planted over it, her teeth biting into her lower lip to ease some of the pain. “N-no, not really.” She replied, as Erika quickly finished off the last wolf. Jonah gestured her to follow him as he spoke. “We need to get to Maria, now!” He shouted, running in the same direction Maria ran off to when she said she'll lead them away. Him and the other four ran through the forest, trying to see if they could hear where she went. They stopped for a second and heard faint growling. “She's over there!” She announced, pointing to the west.
Jonah nodded and lead the group to where they heard the sound, they found a small gully where Maria was on the ground surrounded by three wolves, one standing atop of her. Though she was still nearly 100 feet away, they started to run to her.

Maria was pinned down by a wolf, it was growling and snarling and attempted to bite at her, but she caught the bite with her blade and was slowly twisting it's jaws with the strength of her arms. “GET OFF ME.” She shouted, using a burst of strength and twisting the blade so far to snap the wolf head more than ninety degrees with an audible snap, breaking it's neck and causing it to collapse on top of her. She lifted her arms up to drag the heavy wolf body off from ontop of her as another wolf lunged, biting firmly into her jacket covered left arm easily enough to piece the coat and straight into the flesh underneath.

Before she could even react or cry in pain, it was already thrashing it's head about, making sprays of blood go everywhere while it gnawed into her forearm, she screamed loudly in pain, desperately reaching for her blade on the ground, but was so panicked she missed it several times. Before grabbing onto the blade and firmly plunging it right into the side of the wolves head. The blade piercing to the other side as she screamed, stabbing it in the skull over and over as fast as possible until it let go of her arm. Which was currently soaked in her own blood. The last wolf smelled the blood and leaped right on top of her right as everyone else arrived, Lily managing to stab it right in the side of it's chest to get it off of her.

Maria stood up and Lily got a good look at her, she was clearly badly hurt. With cuts on her face and shoulders, her coat was sliced up but possibly the worst thing was the massive amount of blood she was losing from her left arm. “Oh god Maria, Your arm is a mess. Can you use your hand?” Lily asked, hand still over her eye. Maria groaned in pain and lifted her arm. She gently moved her fingers, her hand currently soaked in her own blood. “Well I can at least move my fingers... I think it's better than it looks.” She commented, before suddenly the band around the wrist of her other arm began to beep loudly. “...Fuck.” She said, knowing that would mean she triggered the evacuation helicopter.

“Looks like you're getting extracted.” Jonah said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to help her walk back to camp. “Let's get everyone patched up before they get here.” Maria sighed and looked at the forest floor, quietly walking back to camp with everyone else. They sat around the fire as Jonah walked up to treat Maria first. “Take off your coat and shirt, Maria.” He asked, Maria quietly agreed and took off her coat and her dress shirt, both stained with blood and leaving her in her tight black tank top. She held out her arm, her pale skin drenched with blood and her arm bleeding a bit more with every heart beat, the flesh was torn straight open almost to the bone as a huge gaping wound. It made him wince as he reached into his backpack to get the medical kit out.

“Can you still feel your hand, Maria?” He asked, quietly, applying some a hemostatic agent to a clean cloth in the medical kit and pressing firmly onto her wounded arm. Maria gently curled her fingers and winced in pain. “Yeah.. It fucking hurts.” She replied, looking away as he then disinfected it, before wrapping it up tightly in a bandage. “That's good, you don't have any nerve damage then.” He replied, letting go of her hand as she lifted it up to inspect it. “My vital tracker went off, but isn't this enough to keep me good for another 2 days?” She asked him, but suddenly she realized that the white gauze began to slowly seep more and more red. “Sadly I used all the styptic that was in our med kit, I slowed the bleeding but you're still leaking like a sieve.”

Maria sighed and leaned back a bit, crossing her arms. “Don't we have more styptic in the other medical kit?” She inquired, Jonah just shook his head. “I don't want to burn through it all at once, we might need it later. Also, I probably have to treat Lily's face.” He explained, looking up to Lily as she had a bloody rag pressed against the side of her cut face. “And you both better be lucky my dad taught me first aid, you'd be way worse off.” He said, inspecting her other arm for similar cuts.

Maria pressed her hand into the bandage, crossing her arms as she looked at him. “I still don't get why I can't go out there and fight.” She said, a bit annoyed. Jonah looked nonplussed and lifted one of her pant leg to find there was a couple of bite marks on her ankles and calves, but the bleeding stopped. “If you called off the helicopter evac, you'd be anemic within the hour. Which means you won't be even able to carry your own weight.” Maria sighed and looked at the floor. “I really screwed up, huh?” She admitted, he just looked at her and sighed. “We all got hurt at least a bit by the wolves, and you took the biggest risk.” He explained calmly, but Erika chimed in. “You took on five wolves at once, that's gotta give you at least some merit.” She said with a smile, Maria looked up as the sound of whirring blades approached from the distance.

“I did something stupid, I know” She said, standing up with a slight stumble. She noticed the blood loss has started to take an effect on her. “Stupid... and insane... and suicidal, but brave.” Jonah said with a chuckle. Maria began to walk away from the campfire, but quickly turned around at the comment, a small grin on her face. “Oh fuck you, Jonah.” She said in an amused tone, before the expression went dour and looked at the ground. “I still failed, though.” She calmly admitted with disappointment. “Not really.” Erika said with a smile, standing up and looking at her. They seemed to be about the same height at slightly above 5 feet. “As long as Jonah gets the relic, you two both win.” She said, giving her a pat as the helicopter floated overhead. It lowered to the ground and everyone got blown with a big gust of rotor wash.

“Alright then...” Maria said, as two people swung the doors of the double propeller helicopter wide open, it looked like medical personnel. She quietly spoke before climbing inside, but leaned out the open door to shout. “HEY, JONAH!” Jonah shouted back at her, hands around his mouth to try and make it louder. “YEAH?” He replied. “DON'T FUCK UP!” She loudly demanded of him, as the doors began to slow and the helicopter slowly lifted into the air and drifted away back toward the academy.

Jonah sighed, grabbing the second medical kit and sighing. “I don't get her at all...” He complained, before sitting beside Lily and gently removing the rag from her eye. There was still a massive 3 slashes going down her face, starting from her forehead, going past her eye and straight down to near the jaw line. The eyelid looked pretty badly cut up, but it seemed like the eyeball was still intact. He quickly disinfected it with some alcohol, before getting a styptic pencil and gently rubbed down the cut to make the wound close and stop bleeding. “Can you move your eye?” He inquired, and she nodded. “Y-yeah... It hurts but it's the blood blinding me, luckily my eye didn't get shredded.”

He nodded and placed a large piece of cotton over the eye, before grabbing the gauze and slowly wrapping it around that side of her face, pulling her hair to one side so it didn't get in the way. “This will hold for now, but you need medical attention as soon as we're in the clear.” Lily just nodded as Jonah gave his pinion, and gave a sigh. “You know... I thought this was going to be dangerous, but I didn't expect me to get hurt on just the training mission alone.” He nodded. “You forget how dire the situation is outside of the big protected city walls. Just being out here has some inherent risk alone.”

Lily sighed and gently hugged her knees as he finished wrapping, the now temporarily one eyed girl just looked at the ground. “Sadly that scar will be there for a long time, rough cuts scar more than clean ones.” He explained, looking at the dancing glow of the campfire as the sound of the helicopter faded from his ears. Lily looked up at the stars, including the black rift smack dab in the middle of the sky. “I kind of wonder if I'm not ready for this...” Jonah frowned as he gently pat her on the shoulder with a smile. “We all think that.” Erika added, leaning forward from just across the campfire. “We're all scared, but someone has to just admit it but be brave anyway. That's why we're all trying to join this academy instead of hiding under our beds in fear.” She finished, giving her a reassuring smile.
Gabriel pumped his fist. “Yeah! No hiding under our beds! I don't fit underneath mine anyway!” He said with enthusiasm, though Jonah just looked confused. “Uhh... You know it's a metaphor, right?” Gabriel's face suddenly became much more serious with that comment, Jonah leaned back at little because he noticed that he gave one hell of a death glare. “Do not questioning my reasoning of beds, Jonah! I am an expert...” He said, mysteriously before going back to his normal goofy grin. Jonah just chuckled awkwardly and looked back at Lily. “But yeah... It's okay to be scared, but.. be brave enough to punch fear right in it's teeth. That's all.” He said calmly, before standing up. Lily smiled at that and leans up to press her hand to rub her bandaged face. “Thanks guys...”

Jonah began to search the campsite, looking around for something. “It's no problem... Wait, Something's wrong.” Lily looked confused and stood up as well, trying to look for what he was looking for. “The bodies were here... but now they're gone.” He murmured with confusion, but Erika quickly cleared that up. “The bodies turn to ash after you kill them, regardless of what they were before they transformed.” She explained, but after she said that, Jonah noticed the black piles of ash on the ground. “Oh... I guess that makes sense.” He said, Lily looked around and walked over to her sleeping bag.

“Even if it's been crazy for the past hour or so, I think we should all try and get some sleep.” She explained to everyone, and they all agreed, slowly going back to sleep in their bags while still tired and sore, even with fear still in their hearts.

Meanwhile, in the helicopter, Maria was having her open wound properly treated by a medic on board. “This seems pretty dangerous, the monsters are getting closer to town.” Said a technician with a face mask on, watching the teenage girl get patched up. She had other cuts on her face, and her legs. But those were nowhere near as bad as the gaping arm wound. The medic patching Maria's arm replied to the technician. “Yeah, we'll need to tighten patrols around the premises and scan more often if they can get this close via pure chance.” Maria sighed and leaned back against the cool steel seat she was resting in.

The medic then turned to Maria. “Sadly, because this wound is caused by Rift fallen, it's pretty resistant to magic and might have to heal on it's own depending on how much gotten into your system. Maria just quietly nodded before hunching forward. She closed her eyes and felt herself slowly begin to pass out.

“She's lost consciousness, doctor. Is she alright?” The technician said, looking up at her. The doctor then lifted her hand to check the ECG strapped to her hand. “Blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation are all at stable levels, she must have fell asleep from exhaustion.” The technician nodded. “Well good, I'd rather not see a little girl die while I'm in here.” He said, looking out the window as they saw the academy slowly close in on the horizon.

A pair of red eyes glared at her within the darkness, though they seemed much less like fire and more just like a calm shade of red. “Hey, I wanted to let you know that I'm really proud you risked yourself back there to help your friends...” Gale explained, Maria tried to speak but her voice actually came out with the same echo that his had, like she finally figured how to speak back to him in her dreams. “To be honest, I just wanted to kill as many as possible.” She explained, trying to push him off. “That isn't true.” He interjected. “I might not be able to read your mind or anything, but I could tell you did it to try and soften the load on everyone else.” He spoke with a hint of joy.



“I was out of my damn mind, I shouldn't risk my back for others.” She replied coldly, but he just gave a quiet sigh. “It doesn't matter how you justify it, your actions will always be the same with or without context.” He retorted, Maria just in the silence of her own thoughts. “Just... Try not to be so suicidal next time. Your back is my back as well, if you go, I go too, and I don't want to see you constantly risking yourself.” Maria just growled in frustration. “Who do you think you are, my mother?” She snapped at him, but he just kept calm. “No, just someone who's concerned.” He responded. “That's right you're not, since you killed her and all.” She replied, clearly still not over what happened this morning. He sighed some, knowing that she will probably never move on past that. It was completely understandable he knew, but he still wanted to make some sense of amends.

“I know... But I'm just telling you to stay strong.” He said, before fading into the black of her sleep.