Chapter 63: Gladiator In Ash

There was a Monster running roadside. Poorly blended in with the forest— as if the dark greenery wasn't its original habitat. It's skin was radiant and hard— sun kissed….. sun beat. It's muscles were round and agile, twitching and bursting with each springy step like a cat. A cat in a perpetual cycle of pounces. Dreads moved like jeweled tendrils down its back. Fluid and free unlike the long silver spear it held.

"Any ideas to send him off road..?" Scott questioned his pack as they all sat grouped in Derek's car.

"Any ideas to set us on a smoother road…?" Stiles cut in, destroying the dark ambience of the whole ordeal with his shaken voice, "No seriously, if we hit another bump things are going to get so insanely awkward I might feed myself to Duecalion willingly…"

Erica laughed as she sat on his lap at the back of the Camaro.

Victoria looked out the window across from them watching Marco. He ran beside their car in human form. He ditched his usual cover up hoodies and leather jackets and opted for a k-9 training gear. It was odd at first but made sense quickly. They weren't fighting Hunters.

They were fighting animals. Monstrous savage animals. They needed protection against jaw strength, tooth and claw. Would it work? Barely if at all. Then again he only really wore it on his arm. Yes, that arm.

Everything else on him looked ready to rip except his spear. He held it despite the steaming from how it burned his skin. The steaming fit the picture. He wasn't glowing, but something about him was on fire.

"We could collaborate with a train to run him down halfway there and he'd still find a way to kill us, get there and get Boyd and his mom, and be back in the factory before sunrise." Victoria said flatly.

"I'm just worried the killing won't end with us. The guy can't even feel pain right now."

"Or hear….."

"Or give me a big wet smooch on the lips!" Erica added.

Everyone glanced at her momentarily.

"What?! Stiles can mask his fear with jokes and I can't?"

"I would probably be more accepting if you didn't say that while sitting on my lap." Stiles swallowed audibly.

Erica shrugged, "We could all be dead after this rescue mission. I'm shooting for the stars."

Derek tightened his grip on the wheel. "We just need to stay on our game. Don't lose it to the moon. Keep your head on straight. Deucalion is betting on us losing it like amateurs. It'll make what he has planned flow easier. We only need one loose cannon. We aim Marco where he can do the most damage and get his mother. Everything else is us."

"Wherever he is." Victoria said.

"WHAT?!"

"He's gone."

"Kill me. Just do it."

"Stiles." Derek commented.

"My bad."

"Everybody get ready. We're less than a three miles away. By the time we get there the moon will be at its strongest. Don't worry about Marco, he'll be there."

***

The rest of the ride was spent in silence. The anxiety set in with the moons ascent as if the two were intrinsically connected. ….

The rest of Marco's run was the exact opposite. It was loud. Deafening. His mind was splitting— shattering. A thousand fractured pieces holding a thousand damaged minds wishing to die. To experience permanence and escape his unrelenting soul. While others embraced him as the last bastion of the Grey Lions. It all blended into an internal sear. Like the moon. As if the two were intrinsically connected. ….

Marco didn't remember his run to the bank. He didn't remember passing the shifting landscapes, desert fields and quiet neighborhoods. There were no sirens for miles— as if the police knew to stay inside. They'd only waste their bullets.

Everything under the moon tonight was synthesized and bloodthirsty. And everything that wasn't was a target. Deucalion wasn't thirsty for blood. He wanted The Lion, The Wolf, and The Coyote. None of them bled easy. Maybe one of them did.

Either way, time was of the essence. Practically every fiber of his being was reaching for the Bank as he stood.

It was imposing. A dark marble encased modern castle with a steel skeleton he could smell from outside. The place felt heavy. Dark and foreboding like a storm cloud. Yet the sky was clear. So clear the moon felt like a midnight sun. Made the burn feel that much realer.

His ears flickered at the sound of tires silently screeching to a halt in the street behind him.

He could smell them before they opened the doors.

He didn't let it split his focus. A thousand other things were already doing that well enough. He held his pointer finger over the portion of road that changed texture and design. From low quality asphalt to something that matched the bank in the distance. Like a root to a tree. Connection.

A drop of his blood on a Full Moon was enough to lock down the whole bank. He could feel the tethers strain over the ferocious forces within like gravity grew stronger for a moment before exhaling back to normality.

"We good?" Derek asked from behind him as he unsheathed a silver machete.

Marco nodded and stood up, "I ran the perimeter. Nothing. All the sounds come from inside."

"Same for the smells." Stiles added.

"Then let's get there." Victoria was the last word spoken.

They all rushed the Bank.

"I'm in first. Wait for me to give you an all clear!" Marco snapped at the shifters at his back as they all sprinted down the road.

As he sped up, the others slowed, watching as he dropped low and jumped forty feet into the air. He hit the reinforced windows like a cannonball with claws.

The shatter hammered his eardrums, fading quickly as he landed on the top floor in a flurry of glass and wiring.

Immediately he was on his feet with his spear aimed wherever his eyes landed.

Empty.

The bank was empty. No terrifying monstrous Alphas. Desolate dark floors, curtains over every other set of windows. Blood stained the stone railings and stairs as if the war had already taken place.

Marco dropped down to all fours and sniffed it before licking it.

He cringed. His muscles spasmed and black fur unfurled from beneath his skin in waves.

Tangy— violently sweet, and pungent. Wolf Blood. But there was something else. Something feline…. But it wasn't Lion.

"Cousin Race…." Marco shivered as he stood and rolled his shoulders. His bones cracked and his tendons stretched as he transformed in seconds. Shifting from a buff dark skinned teenage male to an eight foot tall Lion monster with black leathery skin and a mane of dreads. Golden hairs spun through his dreads and reflected the moonlight through the dark room.

His senses magnified. Making the soft breaths and snarls inside the vault triple in volume.

And the blood on the ground begun to pain a picture.

With every sniff…..

Touch of the blood….

Understanding of the splatter.

He could see the feline shifters— more than a few, dragged in snarling and hissing in a panic as something exponentially more than them brought pain and torture into their lives with bone crushing blows and soul hollowing laughter.

But there was a reason.

"Me…."

He wanted to intimidate— try to trip him into madness.

If he was a new shifter it would've got him. The smell was feline enough. The fear was overpowering enough. All women.

He would've thought his mother was already brutalized.

Marco grabbed his skull and growled as the voices expanded like stretching hands to blind him.

When he opened his golden slitted eyes again a massive quadrupedal Grey Lion faced him. So massive it dwarfed him even on all fours. It's sabered canines were downright prehistoric and dripping with blood. It's eyes flickered from yellow to purple. Warlock infection.

Something his father caught they say….

When the creature yawned he could see his mother inside. Laying against its spiky tongue, caught in the barbs.

"Deucalion doesn't need to kill your mother, child. That's why you aren't going crazy to get to her now. You know that. Because you'll do it. You'll do the worst as you always have. Keeping her in that vegetative state of horror just for your revenge. What now? Your losing your mind. Just like your old ma-"

"SHUT UP!" Marco launched his spear at the beast and tripped through the visible dust in the air under the moons glow.

"Did you say all clear? That's what I heard…" Stiles and Scott came in with their weapons drawn.

The others filtered in slowly after.

They grouped up quickly.

"Nobody is here but the captured. The place is rigged, though." Marco explained as he tried to collect himself.

"How so?" Victoria asked.

"Deucalion wanted to spring me into insanity. He brought a bunch of female Feline shifters inside and beat them lifeless. Let the smells and blood fester to make me think..."

"So…"

"So their could be more traps for the rest of you." Marco approached the bank vault.

Stiles followed, pressing a finger on the surface. "This thing is thicker than I thought….. how do we—"

"Move." Marco grunted.

Stiles stopped touching the vault, "Right…"

Marco ripped off his arm bandage. Immediately the room was drowned in an alpha red light show as his ashen markings absorbed the moons magic and awakened.

Sparks of flame and lightning danced as he grew from a Monster to something….. more. Something both primordial and futuristic. An ancestor and cultivated evolution. A beastial presence and magical anomaly.

The burn was maddening.

He faced the wall and swung.

The whole bank vibrated as his fist ripped through the vault door. He growled in pain, digging his other arm in to begin tearing out the metal until a small hole was made.

Stiles looked through it.

"God damn that was….. impossible."

"What do you see?"

Stiles gazed inside. "Boyd…?"

"…..S-Stiles?"

"Deaton?"

"Stiles!" Deaton yelled, "Forgive my interruption. Boyd… and the others have taken a vow of silence. This night is especially hard on them, I fear."

"Who?"

Something snarled.

Scott shoved past Stiles and lunged in. Once inside Stiles followed and opened the vault.

The darkness of the area played on how barren the area was.

No money or riches. Just drought and madness.

Deaton sat closest to the vault, held up by Scott. The others cling to the shadows, sweating so profusely he could see it even in darkness. Hear it drop from their skin.

"Boyd…."

Boyd stepped out. Unrecognizable.

He wasn't so muscular anymore. He was horrifically gaunt. Taller. Eyes full gold and canines pushing his jaws apart from the rampant overgrowth.

The other Shifter stepped out of the shadows behind them. She wasn't so beat up. Well, she was, but she wasn't starved. He didn't recognize her.

He didn't care who she was. Only who she stood over.

"Mother…"

Derek spoke soon after in complete disbelief.

"Cora..?"

"Derek. Leave before they close the barrier."

"What?"

"The Vault isn't the trap. It's the whole desert around it."

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked.

Marco growled. "Deucalion kept the Berserkers….. and I can't remember my run here. I missed them. I fucking missed them."

Stiles ran his hands over his head. "Did you just say Berserkers….?"

"The Feline Shifters were Nahuals. Deucalion killed them. And kept their servants to send here for revenge."

"AUGH!" Cora keeled over and dry heaved.

"Cora!" Derek attempted to approach his sister.

Marco caught him by the arm.

"They won't be our allies here. They're Moon Starved."

When they looked over at Cora again she was only human in skin. Just like Boyd…. Who they couldn't find.

"Hey…. The floors shaking." Victoria said as she lifted a foot.

"They're coming. Get ready for a fight. Scott if you hesitate in here ill kill you and use your body as a shield for my mother."

"Yea. I got it."

Marco roared and everyone shifted.