A Timely and Unnecessary Assistance

Growl Alpha was just about getting in the shower when a familiar voice spoke in his mind, albeit distantly. He consciously lowered his mental wards and a slew of images rotated around his head. He was already in boxer shorts so there was no need to change. He sprinted out of the bathroom and bounded downstairs, controlling, fine-tuning, the rate at which he was transforming. That discipline was inherent only in Alphas - he could transform to a quarter or a half of his lupine form and stay in such a state for as long as he wanted. When he fought against weak enemies, he remained in a small werewolf form, which was still larger than the average werewolf. He was in this form now as he cut corners and leaped over his packmates. Finally, he dashed out of the front doors of the library, his packmates transforming and scrambling to keep up with him.

The urge was too strong to resist - Growl paused to let loose a magnificent howl, filled with pain and longing and bereavement. And something else: rage! Loping away across the avenues, it was just two minutes later that Growl pulled up to the mayhem outside of the Alfred E. Smith Houses. A werewolf loped past him with a human arm in its mouth. Growl stretched out an arm and arrested the lupine form's movement. He allowed himself to grow to fully fifty percent of his potential.

Irradiated beings, faerie or otherwise, were a menace and had to be put down immediately. Their skin fairly glowed the sickly green hue identifying irradiated beings. They were rabid, and in their eyes was an encroaching madness, confused about the progression of their deleterious state. The werewolf in Growl's hand struggled as it was held aloft by a far superior being, flailing to no avail. Even werewolves needed to breathe, and air was not forthcoming; besides, it's larynx was, in the end, crushed as an act of mercy.

All of the other irradiated werewolves battling it out with Jacqueline's bite turned towards Growl. The other irradiated werewolves also left off whatever they were doing and attacked Growl. Some had been in the middle of a tussle with vampires, and one thing you did not do was turn your back to an enraged vampire. Many fell in the first few instants, when vampires, shocked by their opponents' single-mindedness in attacking Growl, took full advantage of this madness and struck at the werewolves from behind. It was not a cowardly act to kill an enemy from behind if the enemy left himself open due to a certain distraction.

Those irradiated werewolves who were not taken down by vampires as they all attacked Growl, well, they died equally gruesome deaths. Even at just half of his potential full form, Growl was like a giant swatting aside children with an axe. No single irradiated werewolf ever made it inside his reach. Growl's swipes were too fast, his claws more than razor sharp - an Alpha was always an efficient killing machine.

And then came in the cavalry, but Growl barked a short staccato of warnings for his pack to stay back. All but Nyx obeyed. Most of the irradiated werewolves lay bleeding to death anyway. Some had snuck away with questionable booty (human flesh). Growl darted after a certain werewolf making way for an open manhole. He caught it by the dirty scruff of its neck just as it dropped down into what was to have been its sweet escape. No such luck, as Growl shook it into unconsciousness. He looked around. Nearby was an abandoned store with its chain links over the door. He broke the links into steel strip links and trussed the unconscious werewolf to a lamppost. Weeping and sorrowful keening floated in the air - the humans had just gotten a nasty wake-up call that, perhaps, was needed, Growl Alpha thought.

"I hail you, Growl Alpha," said a voice behind and above him.

Dammit, why can't I ever detect her when she's around? Growl thought, as he looked over his shoulder to see Jacqueline and a few other vampires materialize as if from thin air and complete their descent to the street. Did she fight in that? Growl thought passingly. It became harder for a werewolf to converse the deeper into its transformation it went, but an Alpha could understand almost any language perfectly while in lupine form. Responding was the issue, as werewolf throats were not outfitted for human parlance.

Growl transformed back to his still impressive human guise. "Growl!" He swiveled, ready for combat and began transforming yet again when he realized it was just Nyx, who came from around a corner and threw him a pair of shorts. "I knew you left you'd leave your shorts behind, how you flew outta base." Growl frowned, then realized he was naked and shrugged self-consciously.

"Thanks, Nyx," said Growl, as he put on the baggy shorts which were not baggy on him by much. Had he gained weight? They seemed a bit tight.

"I starched them a bit," Nyx whispered to him while shielding his naked butt from the seductive and amused smile of the Queen Vampiress.

"No shirt?" Growl whispered back as he turned around.

Nyx looked up at him with her golden eyes and smiled. "They can admire half your glory, not all of it." He snickered.

"Queen Ketch," Growl said turning to Jacqueline; he bowed. She inclined her head.

"Growl Alpha," Jacqueline repeated. "We are grateful for your timely assistance." She looked around at the devastated humans, whose numbers were growing as the community came to find out what was going on.. "It surely would have been worse without your presence." He inclined his head self-deprecatingly.

"There's a prisoner," Growl said, pointing to the still unconscious werewolf he had wrapped up nearby. Growl, Nyx, Jacqueline and the ever present Bastion walked over to the sickly glowing werewolf. Growl raised his hand to shake the werewolf awake but Jacqueline placed a hand on his arm, a moment that lasted too long for Nyx's taste. Jacqueline then tapped the side of her head and took Growl's hand. With her other hand she placed it on the unconscious werewolf's forehead and took a mental dive into the memories of the moribund beast. The radiation that poisoned the environment and Earth's inhabitants also, paradoxically, kept certain faerie, primarily werewolves going. They became stronger and more vicious with radiation poisoning. But their deaths were assured as surely as the ice cream machines had always been broken in McDonald's in whilom days.

The pictures in the beast's mind were a jumbled cornucopia of huge warehouses with various faerie folk (most, if not all) who were irradiated milling about doing God knows what. It looked like the faerie folk were all in various states of irradiation and were pushing or pulling large wheeled bins with something inside them, like... vats or barrels... And then the mental picture of the... thing that was surely their master. The creature was almost as tall as Growl Alpha, but it was lithe and almost incandescently irradiated. As the unconscious werewolf stirred, the images began getting grainy, but not before the ostensible leader of the irradiated werewolves seemingly looked directly at Growl Alpha. The werewolf stood erect, different sorts of armor covering different parts of his body. And then their prisoner regained consciousness.