Scrapping

Our spot was in the middle of a patch of trees, slightly to the north of the town. To get there, you had to wade through a field of nettles, artfully hurdling brambles on the way while serenading your companions with pained curses. Then you had to scramble over a half falling down dry stone wall to get into a shady alley hemmed by cages, in which aggressive dogs were held in unsuitable circumstances. Once you successfully navigated that, it was another wall and a ten minute walk through the woods to get there.

To be honest, it wasn't anything special. A fallen tree to sit on, a flat plane to build a campfire on, and a tyre swing that was older than all of us combined and was probably a death trap that we used anyway. There were probably a dozen other equally good or better spots scattered around, but I liked the sense of accomplishment we got when we reached it.

Or at least, I usually did.

Today, there were humans in our spot. We had scented them a few minutes before arriving and had a brief argument over the mind link about what we should do. Nathan had just wanted to go back and find somewhere else to drink, his distaste for humans obvious, whereas I had voted for shifting, charging at them, and generally scaring the shit out of them until they went away. Gwenna had calmly vetoed both those ideas and was now forcing us to act 'normal'. So, we were marching up to our spot, which had invaded (and no, I'm not going to get over that), and sitting there anyway. There were five of them, all around fifteen years old, all male, and all getting pissed. They also seemed to think that they were far more intimidating than they actually are, given the way they went silent and glared at us, no doubt trying to scare us off.

Obviously, after killing an alpha, I wasn't going to be cowed, and neither were the others. If we'd been cocky before, we were going to be unbearable now. My wolf stopped preening just long enough to try and exert her dominance over the teens, though it had more of an effect on my friends than them. They were humans, after all. Fun fact: if you ever meet someone who scares you for no apparent reason, then you either have anxiety, or they're a shifter. Our furs always have a presence that humans can sense, though because you don't know what that is, you fear it. I managed to tone down the dominance long enough for us to sit down and crack open the vodka, each of us taking a swig while maintaining eye contact with the teens.

"We were here first, piss off." One of them, who my wolf immediately pegged as the leader, snarled at us. I smirked infuriatingly at him, letting Nathan speak for us.

"We don't give a fuck. If you don't want to share, then you can leave instead." He snapped out, though any intimidation it could have had was cancelled out as he popped open a can of pringles and started to eat.

"You think you can take us?" The cocky lad scoffed, eyeing us up as his mates did the same.

"No, we don't think we can take you." Gwenna allowed with a smirk, nudging me discreetly.

"We know we can take you. Little boys like you will get their arses kicked to kingdom come if they take on people like us." I drawled, standing up and slowly stretching out my limbs as I took another swig of vodka and handed it off to my brother, who slowly put it on the ground. In a heartbeat, the teens stood up, aggression and testosterone rolling off of them in waves. Gwenna and Nate were stood at my shoulders in a heartbeat, making my smirk that much more confident. We may be outnumbered, but boys like this had experience that would be limited to school yard scraps, whereas we had been fighting for our lives for years now.

And, y'know, shifter strength is no small advantage.

"Alright then, let's fucking go!" One of them yelled out, stepping up and trying to shove me and Gwenna back. The other five seemed to be focusing on my brother, no doubt pegging him as the most dangerous simply because he was a guy. The second I managed to put idiot #1 on his arse, that perspective seemed to shift a little. A few of them broke off, one of them stepping it to the bored looking Gwenna, one of them helping his friend back up, and the other charging at me. I'll be honest, I was not willing to put in even a fraction of my full effort into this fight. I was tired, my ribs hadn't fully healed yet, and I couldn't even fight to maim like you could with other wolves. So, instead of meeting his charge, I stepped to the side at the last moment, hooked my leg under his knees and yanked it upwards, pitching him forward so his chin met the ground with an audible clack and he was sent skidding forward and into the stream.

My brother was doing just fine, in a twist that should surprise precisely no one, having already broken one boy's nose and was now tackling the other to the ground. Before I could even look at Gwenna, the guy I'd put on his arse was rushing me having not learnt his lesson the first time, but from the howls of pain coming in her direction that were definitely not hers, I gathered that she was doing alright too. I swung at the charging boy, breaking his nose and shoving him to one side before stepping towards now the only lad left standing. He didn't look eager to fight with any one of us, never mind all three of us, though we wouldn't gang up on people.

Unlike some people.

I didn't push the cowering boy any further, though don't get me wrong, I was judging him heavily for it. They shouldn't have started the fight to begin with, obviously, but get it wrong, gotta stay strong, you know? If he were a wolf, his refusal to take part in a fight that his pack got into would knock him right to the bottom of the hierarchy, whereas if he fought his and lost, he would only slide down to below where we were. The three of us stood our ground as they all picked themselves up, looked at us, looked at the state of each other, and promptly decided to leg it.

"Thank god for that. Now we can get shit faced in peace." Gwenna muttered, flopping down and taking another deep drink from the bottle of vodka. I eased myself down besides her, ribs throbbing from the movement now I'd stopped the healing with all the movement.

"Again, we don't own this spot. What if they run off and tell the police? Da said that the next time we brought the police down on him that he'd go berserk." Nate muttered. I rolled my eyes, snatched the vodka from Gwenna and shoved it at him.

"Drink up and chill down." I muttered, nicking the can of pringles and fending away Gwenna's sticky hands. Usually, he would have argued back, but my brother wasn't one to turn down the chance to get drunk.

"So, what do we think the retaliation for killing the alpha will be?" Gwenna asked, making the light mood that I had only just managed to establish evaporate like water on a sunny day. I groaned and threw my head back.

"For crying out loud, guys, can we not? I just want to celebrate the achievement, not think about the consequences. That sounds like a problem for future me to deal with. Present me just wants to get drunk and be happy." I cried out, snatching the vodka back and taking a big gulp, wincing as it seared its way down my throat. The more you drank, the more bearable drinking it straight was, but those first few minutes were always bloody rough. As soon as I pulled it away from my lips, Gwenna passed me a jam doughnut to take away the taste that I gladly accepted. "Though, I guess they are gonna strike back pretty hard. Reckon there'll be more rogue attacks. Shit, what if article seven gets passed?" I realised, suddenly feeling guilty. Not for killing the alpha, but for the now increased likelihood of the most recent anti rogue law being passed. Article seven would allow packs to kill rogues on sight, even when they weren't trespassing, which meant that trips to Silsden would suddenly bring with them a threat of death.

"Then we'll raid the packs until they wish that they had never passed it. Eventually they've got to learn that the more they hurt us, the more we'll raid them." Gwenna reasoned. I doubted her words, somehow. After all, no matter how much they hurt the rogues, we kept raiding. Both parties were far too stubborn, and so the only way this would be resolved was with one party dying out.

And I would do everything in my power to make sure it was my rogues that survived.

After that, the mood in the clearing had dropped to a point where none of us could pull it back. We drank the vodka, finished the snacks, and collected the rubbish, and decided to just head home. By the way, three drunk wolves running towards their home is quite a funny sight, mainly due to the stumbling and constnant dashing muzzle first into trees. With minimal injuries, we made it back, shifting and dressing in the privacy of the treeline before wandering back into the camp.

"Ay, there's a rugby game on. Wanna go watch?" Nate offered, gaze fixed on the field we used as the sports court. Rogue rugby games were violent, often ending with a huge brawl, but they were damn fun.

"Hell yeah! Warning both of you now, if a brawl breaks out, I'm joining in. It has been way too long since I've been in the middle of a decent scrap." Gwenna sighed mournfully as we reached the outskirts of the pitch. The teams were currently being picked, but due to the lack of raiders in camp (at least three different raids were going on) the captains were already having to dip into the pack of half feral children to fill out the ranks. When one of the captains, his name was Leo, I think, saw us, his face lit up and he jogged over.

"Hey, it's the terrible trio! Wanna get in on this? It's you guys or I start picking out the biggest under twelves we have, which is just a bit sad, really." We exchanged looks, shrugging until I nodded.

"Yeah, go on then. By the way, we're half way wasted right now." I pointed out. Hey, if we were going to play for the guy, full disclosure, am I right?

"I can smell it on you, but I don't really care if I'm honest. Nate, you can be my back, Gwenna and Nat can be wings." He decided, ushering them onto the pitch. I hung back just long enough to pull of my brown leather jacket and dump it at the side before taking up my position, watching as the others took up their positions. We were gonna win, mainly because the three of us were playing, but partly because there were a few more kids on their team.

And so, the game kicked off.