Chapter 5 Not as invincible as I thought

Although they had gotten away for now, they didn’t know if anything was chasing them so they decided to get away from the forest as quickly as possible. John entered the cave while Luna stood outside waiting. I’m worried about Alpha, he got stabbed in the chest but seems to not care much. I want to help him but I don’t know how. I guess I just have to do my best, whenever he needs me Luna thought, worrying over what to do, while somewhat looking over her shoulder to see if something was coming. “I can’t find my clothes” John said hurriedly, hoping to get away before something caught up to them. “Where did you leave them?” Luna asked with concern and stress in her voice. “I-I don’t remember ever taking them off or putting them anywhere” john uttered, high on adrenaline and stressed out. Suddenly he remembered that had in fact never taken them off, however there were no bits of clothes anywhere, nor his rifle. John got an epiphany as he promptly transformed back into a human, suddenly he was standing there 6’5’’ tall with in his old military clothes, with his old rifle on his back. “I was correct, I did never take them off” john thought out loud. John was indeed correct, when he transforms, his clothes gets stored somewhere, waiting for him to transform back. “Well that settles that problem, now let’s get the hell out of here”.

After John made sure all his belongings were safe, he rapidly transformed back into his werewolf form, and this time was a much smoother and quicker change. Instead of being reorganized like a Lego set, it was more like he was a balloon that simply grew bigger, longer and hairier. After completing his transformation, they both raced of out of the forest, with John in the lead. After a short while they arrived at John’s hunting shack, where he hurriedly picked up some bits and bobs he had left earlier. Eventually they made it to the edge of the forest, on top of a hill overlooking the small village, where they felt like they could finally take a breath.

Unless he absolutely had to, he was not going back into the forest anytime soon. John transformed back into a human, and said “Luna, you should use your wolf form, at least that way we won’t easily give away our trump card, in case something happens. Also if we go in their looking like crazy beast, I bet every skittish gun totting man in town will start shooting at us. I know a lot of these people they probably won’t shoot us if I stay human”. “I understand” she replied curtly. They continued walking, eventually arriving at a John’s old beat up house. “Wait here and watch the door, Luna, I’ll just go pick up a few things” John told her, Luna simply nodded. She sat down on the porch and with her extremely good vision, scouted the surrounding area.

Suddenly *bang bang bang* sounded out loudly from inside the house. It took some time for Luna to process what she just heard, as a wolf she had heard gun shots many times, however, never this close. Once she managed to process the information, she ran inside as fast as she was capable off. After getting inside, time almost froze as Luna spotted John bleeding on the floor, while the assailant stood there pointing his gun towards John. Next to the assailant stood two other men looking smug. In a raging fury, Luna stormed towards the assailant whilst transforming into her werewolf form. While she was mid air, flying towards him, the assailant spotted her and managed to twitch his hand towards Luna and fire a single shot. Luna could almost see the bullet flying towards her, although it gave her a scare, she disregarded it and simply powered on forward. The bullet hit her square in the chest, however it only went in about half an inch, not even enough to cause Luna to feel pain. However, this was definitive evidence that while their skin was tough, it was not bulletproof.

After a fraction of a second, Luna arrived in front of the three men and promptly swiped her right arm in a raking motion across the face of the three enemies. The tree men stood there for a moment before their bodies caught of with what happened and gravity took over as they fell backwards. Laying on the ground their, the three men’s face looked like jelly that had been slapped, as most of the nerves in their face had been cut, they couldn’t really make any expressions however, one could tell their bodies were desperately trying. Luna took a moment to enjoy the sight, however she quickly looks at John, she wants to help him, however, she could hear more enemies up stair, and decided that she should secure the whole house before helping John.

As she races upstairs, she hears a racket behind the closest door, she breaks the door open with a light push. Only few feet away from her a man laying on top of someone in a bed. Luna simply walks in and as he is about to turn around to see who broke down the door while he was having a good time, she grabs his whole head with one hand. Before he could even manage to let out a scream, Luna has crushed his head killing him instantly, Luna simply throws the dead body to the side and gets ready to kill the other one. However, just as she is about to swipe her hand downwards, she spots the second person in the bed. It’s a woman as one might suspect, however, she is battered and bruised, with tears streaming down her face. She is making a very, soft and sad whimpering as she looks, scared at Luna. Although Luna is not merciful, the kind of whimpering the girl was making, touched a sore spot for Luna, as it reminded her of her own puppers. Deciding against killing the girl she simply turned around and walked over into the next room.

As she opens the other door, Luna spots three men playing poker, around the room were several rifles of varying sizes and calibers. The three men were playing poker without a worry in the world, to them, screams and gunshot are a daily occurrence, one of them even wondered when it would be his turn with the girl. Two of them were sitting with their backs against the door and the third was looking at the door. As Luna open the door, the third man got a major fright, as a gigantic hairy beast steps through the door. When Luna spots the three men she rushes forward swiping the two closest with her hand, however, her claws are only 1 ½ inch long, so even though she manages to cut their necks she isn’t able to cut them clean off. Of course, Luna doesn’t care, as long as they die.

While this was happening the third one reaches for his gun and manages to shoot Luna dead center of her skull. Had he known that an animals strongest defence is their forhead and front skull, especially for werewolves, he probably would have shot somewhere else, alas, Luna would never give him the time to do that. This was definitely not his lucky day, as Luna used one arm to push the table into his stomach which caused the goon to lose his balance. At the same time, Luna grabbed his head and ferociously slammed it into the table, breaking the table in two as well as the mans life.

At this point Luna, had gotten out most of her anger, the bullet in her chest had also been pushed out and the wound was starting to heal up. As she was heading back to John, she changed back into a wolf, since being a werewolf was a bit unwieldy, and clumsy inside. After coming down the stairs, Luna looked at John and noticed that he still hadn’t woken up, his wounds weren’t healing like she expected either. She rushes over and tries to wake him up, but no matter how much she tries she can’t a response out of him. Screaming “Alpha!” telepathically, several times didn’t help any either.

Luna lays down with her head-on Johns lap, I don’t know what to do. I’m so useless, we just meet, yet I already failed you. I promised to serve you for the rest of my life, yet after just a few hours this happened she lamented. Just as Luna was feeling heart wrenching grief, she suddenly feels a hand on her head. “I’m sorry, Luna, Did I worry you?” John apologized. When Luna hears his voice all her worries melt away and all she feels is boundless happiness. Looking up at his weakly smiling face, Luna is lost for word and decides to do what all wolves do to show love and trust, she starts licking his face. John simply smiles and pets Luna while she licks his face. Luna has never been petted before, however as John strokes her she understands why dogs love their owners so much. “Don’t worry, Luna, I will be fine. I guess I’m not as invincible as I thought” John says self deprecating.

Luna and John sit like this for an hour, John smiling, Luna filled with bliss as she is being petted in Johns lap. At this point, Johns wound had mostly stopped bleeding and was starting healing, however it was notably slower than when he was in werewolf form. That’s when they both notice a girl, walking downstairs, of course it is the girl Luna meet earlier. She looks around nervously, before looking at John and the gigantic wolf in his lap. Looking at how jittery, nervous and meek she is, John can guess what has happened to her.

Luna tells him telepathically what happened earlier, although he is a bit annoyed at all the blood that is bound to be around his house, he is also touched by Lunas anger by proxy. John looks at the girl “You are welcome to stay if you like” he offers. She looks at John and simply shake her head “I have to leave” She meekly responds. “Are you sure, it’s dangerous out there”. She shakes her head once again, and takes a detour around John, disappearing out the front door at high speed. While John was laying there, relaxing, he thought about what Luna had told him earlier. He looked at the man who had shot him and Luna, he noticed that his gun should be a 9mm, and while a 9mm definitely couldn’t kill them, he was sure that if someone started shooting him with full auto m16’s he would probably die very quickly. He concluded that while going in human form, he was weaker, he was also less of a target. As John was in no shape to move, they both laid there in the same position, until they both eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, Luna woke up from John stirring as he woke up. Johns wounds were mostly healed at this point. Next to Lunas cheek there lay three mushed bullets that had been pushed out at some point during the night, despite this his wounds still hurt a bit when walking. John went and found some food the scavengers had stored up. While Luna went, and dragged the dead bodies outside into the backyard, it would after all be troublesome if their bodies started rotting and ruining the house. John and Luna ate breakfast which after they found out human food tasted pretty bland, consisted of scavenger hearts, while watching a pyre of gasoline doused heartless-scavengers burn brightly. Which didn’t bother them one bit. Despite eating almost 4 hearts for breakfast, John's wounds still did not heal completely, it would seem these read hearts were not even a fraction as good as the purple on at healing wounds. Although John himself didn’t think too closely about it, he had become much more savage, ruthless and apathetic like a wolf, since he came back.