CHPT 167: Kindred Spirits.

Endless.

That was one word that accurately described the pain, the fear and the anger.

After being forced to shift, the Lupines terrorized him under the never changing Moon. He fought with everything he had— firmly believing that he was better than a band of wildmen, he had to be. Someone of his stock, with his relations simply had to be better.

Those thoughts were beaten to the ground, or at least taken from the forefront of his mind after being thrown into trees, body slammed and bitten so painfully that his vision went pure white.

Some time along the way, he merely became a shell of his old self. Suppressed in mind and changed in body. He didn't even know what day it was— or how much time had passed. Any time he was slammed on his back or thrown through the air, whenever he looked to the sky, that disgusting white globe among the dark sea of stars was in the same position, half enveloped in shadows and forever unmoving.

This truly was hell.

***

Sometime along the way, Samuel succumbed to his own exhaustion, only this time they all didn't take the opportunity and fill him with bite wounds and scratch marks. Instead Dolion shifted back— a very disgusting and unnatural thing to watch, and told him if he moved, he'd lose all his claws and each tooth.

It's not like he was going to get far anyway. So all he could do was watch as the Deviant exit suddenly appeared and they all popped out of the hellish existence he laid inside. Was it even a Deviant? How could someone control it? Were they the original Monsters inside? Is something else inside with him?

Any questions he had apparently weren't thought provoking enough to stand against his incredible levels of fatigue, causing him to quickly drift away to sleep. No dreams, no nightmares, just dark while he panted loudly and covered the grass in his shining ruby colored blood.

***

VWOOMP!

VWOOMP!

He was startled out of his sleep by the Lupines re-entering, smelling of blood and death. He didn't know why but he immediately became ravenous— as if everything inside of him demanded food to a homicidal degree.

At the front was Dolion, with a dead Mountain Lion slung over his shoulder that dripped blood down his chest and legs. The others had deer and other forms of torn and mutilated prey.

Except for Jack.

Jack stood closest to Dolion, fully human, holding two dead human bodies over each shoulder while blood dripped down his chin and into his furry chest.

Samuel got up and made an attempt to protest, only to be able to snarl and move just enough to reopen the long cuts running the length of his golden furred back.

"No need to be on your guard, Kiddo. It's dinner time!" Jack howled happily to Samuel as they all approached.

A few more seconds passed before they all reached him and sat in a wide circle. Within the pack, the Lupines had individuals they seemed closer with who they sat in smaller subgroups with. Sharing their kills and fighting over the pieces they felt were the best.

The subgroup closest to him was compromised of what he assumed were the best. Dolion, Jack, Aiko and the tall dark skinned man that looked like he could twist peoples heads of with his giant veiny arms.

As they sat next to him, Jack took the closest seat, dropping the two dead human bodies in front of him like they were useless luggage.

Aiko took the next closest seat to him and simply watched from a distance while she tore into the headless buck she was carrying.

But, he couldn't focus on her for long, his senses were drawn elsewhere. Drawn to the human bodies that laid in front of him.

A couple times he caught himself sinking his claws into the dirt, trying to inch himself closer and closer to the bodies. To the scent of blood and old fear. It was impossible to avoid.

"Well don't be shy. Dig in!" Jack suddenly said while looking from Samuel to the corpses that lay in the grass excitedly.

Samuel snarled and shook his head violently in a partially human gesture.

Jack seemed to immediately be angered by his response and lunged in, grabbing him by the ruff as if he were simply a dog acting out of turn.

Woo!

"Hey! Don't deny your urges....A human is the best piece of prey to us Followers of Remus. Just smell that, that terror that rises from their torn flesh and seeps insides you...." He said before taking a moment to sniff the air with his gangly and crooked nose. "Humans. Just perfect. Their complexity and weakness makes them perfect to hunt. The amount of fear they let off is like nothing else on earth. Fear for their annoying ass children! Fear of the dark! Fear of the unknown! They feel it all, making it so much more potent and beautiful when you rip em to shreds! Smell it!" He continued with his tone rising in excitement before he pushed Samuel's head into the bodies.

Samuel snarled and pushed him away, getting a rise out of the other Lupines who simply watched after Jack put out a hand for them to relax.

Even though Samuel refused Jack's initial reaction, his eyes wouldn't leave the body. Wouldn't leave the thin red lines of blood that leaked through its clothing and over its skin. Jack knew what he was doing.

"Don't try to play superhero now, kiddo! Aren't you rich? Pretty little rich boy.....hahahah. You've been feeding on the poor longer than I have! Since before you were given the gift, you were a predator, boy. Why care now!? This weak trash was a beggar, a filthy beggar simply feeding off the mercy of others! You don't have sympathy for that! Eat or starve. Eventually you'll do one or the other instead of staring and something tells me it won't be the latter." Jack said before his body exploded with steam and he transformed to continue eating the face of the human he held by the neck.

He heard the crushing of bone and tearing of flesh as he continued to stare. His eyes wouldn't move, his stomach wouldn't stop screaming at him. Slowly, Jack's poisonous words infected his brain in the time of desperation.

"He's a nobody...." The word sent an image of Claude's scowling face straight to his mind, enraging him immediately.

The Lupines that watched him began to lean in as he snarled silently and his claws sunk into the grass while he continued watching the body, inching closer and closer. Rationality and human morals were freely flowing from his mind like smoke leaving the burning embers of an old campfire. It seemed the more time he spent in here, the less human he became, slowly there was only room for the predator— the monster he'd become.

He tried to continue fighting the urge with the small shred of control he had, but he couldn't deny his body and the carefully chosen words Jack fed to him.

"I'm supposed to be somebody. I'm Samuel fucking Leon. I'm destined to be the best, better than these dirty scumbags— BETTER THAN EVERYONE! If that means I have to tear through every nobody on earth to ensure that then so be it!...The weak are disgusting anyway." Samuel thought as foam leaked freely from his jaws and his muscles hardened into fiery hot iron.

WOO!

He was off the floor in the blink of an eye and sinking his face into the humans vulnerable midsection to rip its way to the hot blood and guts beneath.

"There you go, kiddo!" Jack commended before pulling the ring off the humans finger with his fangs and eating its hand.

The balding and disheveled Lupine of Remus watched the boy with keen interest as he ripped and snarled in search of the most nutritious parts, being led by his nose and mindless hunger. He could see something in him as clear as day. It was something he saw in Samuel very early, back when he posed as a Guard of the University of the Phoenix. It was something only someone like him could see.

A killer. A hunter of man. He'd been labeled as such even before being reborn with the Gift of Remus. He'd enjoyed preying on their fear inside their homes and tearing them to pieces since he was a boy— since he took his first target and basked in the man's fear. His father. Ever since then, he developed a sense.

Being that he was so different from everyone else around him, he could immediately weed out others like him. It was a good thing when he was young since he immediately knew the first people to kill. Erase the competition. But now, the Lupines needed someone like Samuel, many someone's like him. Preferably a whole army of them to effectively execute their lord, Remus' will.

The thing he saw in Samuel was only barely visible to others. Jack saw it entirely, they saw drop, he saw the entire sea of black.

Samuel wasn't Reborn as a Dark Knight for no reason. The boy was cruel to an excitingly unsettling degree. He learned such from his time watching the twins at the University. The boy didn't even like his brother. He probably didn't truly like anyone, only respected the strong and thought of how to surpass them— and kill them. Erase the competition.

On top of all this, the boy was able to be convinced into consuming a weak and long dead human by his own hunger and Jack's words. He was cruel, ruthless and easy to be pointed in new depraved directions like a loaded weapon of mass destruction. Jack understood his sociopathy completely because Samuel was just like him.

"You've got potential, blondy. Heheheh..."