QUICK! GET BACK!

"GyrrrrrooaaaaaRrrrr" Where did I hear that sound before? Some kind of dragon? Not that I've met one... A lambo - that's right. There was a lambo behind that wall.

"Get back!" I yelled waving my left hand for the combined team to fall back. I didn't have to say it actually, the rats came flooding out and seriously... No one wanted to be caught in the frenzied rodent exodus.

Something large slammed itself from behind the stone wall with such force that it actually shook it.

The rats froze, and the dust and small debris started raining down just for a moment, and then another roar from behind the wall and everything started moving again, in fast forward.

And then it was like all the channels in my mind fired up again, and Boo was surfaced so close to shifting, but not shifting. This was a good feeling, wolf power full steam ahead!

"Okay, let's get out of here. Evacuate the other teams too." I yelled, whacking a particularly large rat out of the way. That would've been a hundred points.

But it's not a game anymore. No matter what was behind that wall, I was sure it wasn't a lambo, unless there was a model of the car with teeth because I was sure whatever it was had teeth.

Unfortunately, the passageway out was blocked by the other teams coming over to look.

"You heard the alpha! Get out of the dungeons!" Ben yelled aloud and through the mindlink at the same time.

"Go, go, go! Let's go!" Jonah echoed as his spearheaded the way out, turning the wolves to the right direction.

"Ki and Harvey to assist. Evacuate dungeons. Code 1." Ben instructed on the beta channel.

"Everyone follow Jonah! Ladies and pups first. Shifted wolves last! Report all injuries to Ki" I heard Harvey's calm instruction.

Our wolves started to move, opening a space for us to exit. Shannon stuck Abigail through first, just into whatever space in the crowded narrow hallway out of the chamber. Then he pushed Lizzy and Angela through. He turned to reach out a hand to Lola but she shook her head, "I want to fight."

"Shannon, go." I ordered when he hesitated. Mostly because if anything happened, I really didn't want to have to face Shannon's mum.

The stone wall crashed down.

"GYRRRAARROARRRRR!" Went whatever that came out. We were not all going to make it out in time.

"Lola too!" I decided. I made a u-turn, running back into the cloud of dust and debris while yelling back, "Everyone get out!"

"Sam!" Ben yelled chasing me into the dust cloud.

S*** rats. But those were the least of my concern. I moved fast but I could still feel their wriggling bodies making the ground unstable to run on.

T.T I was stepping on rats!!!

But better me on them than them on me. Step lively now!

I made it to the cell and slammed it shut.

The monster charged out from within the cloud of debris.

"F***!" I heard Ben swear vehemently from beside me. He had just made it to my side and was slamming his keycard on the pad to activate the gate to lock.

Just then, whatever it was, let's call him the Rat King, smashed against the metal bars. These bars were made for wolves... So they were strong thick bars, I thought it would keep him in, but the Rat King actually uprooted one end of it. The sound of the force bending the metal, the rocks breaking up, and the rumbling of the Rat King's lambo engine... I couldn't describe it.

Ben pocketed his key card and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the bars just as the Rat King charged into us.

The bars kept him back, but they also bent, the smell of his breath, those teeth! Arugh... that was unreal!

Those teeth! That mouth! Like a shark but bigger. If not for the cell bars, I think it could have bitten me in half.

"F***." A rat landed on Ben. He tried to swat it off. It bit his hand.

Gun shot. The rat was dead. That was close, the gun shot that is, but we had bigger things to worry about. Specifically the Rat King.

The Rat King charged again. Some rats, the real ones, who were running for their lives, scrambled on the top of the higher cell bars or wooden beams, made a jump for it. I was sure they would land on me and braced myself. And then a few gunshots flew above my head. I froze. A dead rat hit me square on the head and dropped down to the ground.

I swallowed the urge to scream. It wasn't so much the fear than the disgust.

"Keep moving, Sam!" Ben yelled. I kicked off a rat on my leg, my hair flaring. I could actually feel little claws in my jeans. I never want to do this again. Never.

The rats scattered when more gunshots hit the floor.

"Are you alright?" It was Lola. She had stayed and was the one who shot the rat off Ben's hand from her perch on a wooden bench. Ben's hand was bleeding, but it was from the rat bite, Lola's careful aim had hit the target.

Ethan was there too. He wasn't laughing, gun still poised to shoot. He was the other one who stayed. Would you look at that! The hyena was a speed sniper... When he wasn't laughing too hard to hold the gun steady.

He shot at the monster, but the bullet ricocheted off his hide.

"Aim at the eyes." Ben said and the both of us hoped up another bench.

Ethan shot twice, but the monster blinked and roared.

Ben took the gun and tried, but that only enraged the beast more. The creature had natural bullet proof armour!

Lola took one deliberate careful shot but the monster charged at that moment and the bullet hit its face and ricocheted off again.

"Talk about being thick skinned!" Ethan said and then he laughed "Eiyahahahahahaha!"

"Grab Lola. Let's go." Ben grabbed me by the waist and hoisted me up like a sack of potatoes. Ethan picked up Lola princess style, but nearly dropped her in his haste. Lola climbed up on his back for a piggy back instead.

Then the guys ran for the door.

I didn't need to be carried. But the guys had higher boots and the rats were shin deep now. So I wasn't about to complain. I did wish I had thought to ride Ben's back instead of being carried in this upside down sack of potatoes way.

"We're going to die!!!! Eiyahahahahahaha..." Ethan half screamed above the screeching of the rats.

"Shut up and run." Ben said, overtaking him.

The roaring in the last chamber hadn't quieten. We hadn't stopped to close the door, but it wasn't large enough an opening for whatever the Rat King was, because by now, I could confirm - that was NOT.A.RAT.

How would I describe it? Let's say you made a t-rex without a body. Just the head joined directly to the legs and tail. Yeah. That would be it. In my impression, most of it was teeth.

The dungeons groaned at each impact of the outraged monster. It was like a boulder banging around in there. Meanwhile the exit we were charging towards was sealed shut but as we approached, the door swung open for Ben and Ethan to get us through.

Harvey, Killion, Alaric (aka Fluffy) Nix, Jonah, Henry and Marcus were waiting with guns. They shot and stamped and whacked at whatever rats got through. Ben dumped me unceremoniously on the side bench and slammed the door shut.

I stood up and stomped on the nearest rat, it wasn't a big one. So it died instantly.

You know, I always thought I was afraid of rats, since I would always opt to avoid them, but now I realised I wasn't. In the light of the other thing in the dungeon, rats weren't a big deal at all.

I used the stick I was still holding to smash a few more. If you used enough force and made a good hard jab at them, they died.

When we had dealt with the immediate rats, Jonah and Nix kicked the bodies into two piles. One on each side. Naturally, they were competing on who got the largest pile.

"Everyone is safe. Flynn and Hank are continuing the party upstairs. Alpha Kingsley and Beta Lucas are enroute." Harvey reported.

"Won't we need more warriors?" Ethan asked.

"It's too crowded down here." Ki explained.

Yeah, it was already crowded here, in the dungeon's waiting room. And the limited confines of the chambers and narrow passages were not exactly conducive for for large monster hunting parties.

Actually, all we needed were a few strong wolves... Except that I could hear the rats behind the door. It was a rodent riot in there.

"This is bad." Ben said as a small rat squeezed itself through a notch under the door. He stomped on it.

"Can someone tell me what's going on here?" Henry asked.

"The rats... They'll escape into the sewers and leak through whatever gaps in the building." Ben said, "My dad's going to kill me."

The other betas looked grim.

"We're going to have a rat problem on our hands." Ki sighed.

As if angered that my betas considered the rats a more pressing issue than its existence, the monster roared and charged again, ramming into another stone wall or whatever it was that was in its way.

It kept doing that, roaring, charging, crashing roaring... Boo listened with great interest, ears on the prey.

Wait what? Who's the prey here?

Last I looked, that thing had more teeth than I did! I frowned as the thing roared in the background.

"Please don't tell me that thing inside is a rat." Henry smirked, "Sam, what the hell was that?"

"Gyara." I guessed. The magical monster beasts that roamed the colored mountains. They hibernated in the deep caves of the mountains, and usually scavenged on the remains of other animals, more often than not, their own fallen. But every now and then they would go into a frenzied state, and stampede, wildly attacking anything and anyone that crosses their path.

Inside their heads, grew magic crystals. Gyara were traditional hunted in the Colored Mountains for their magic crystal, their meat, and as game.

In fact, wolves were first created to hunt the Gyaras and keep them from growing too large or becoming too numerous for it to be safe for the humans.

But Gyaras were from the Colored Mountains. Out here in the plains, these things didn't exist. They were like unicorns, except ugly and clumsy and stupid.

"You expect me to believe you have a gyara in your dungeon?" Henry asked.

And then I realised no matter how close an ally, Henry was still an alpha from another pack, in another packland, and it just didn't seem like a good idea to show other alphas the skeletons in your closet... Or in our case, monster in our dungeon.

"It's a big rat." I amended.

Henry raised a brow at me.

"Well, it's not a lie if you know I'm lying." I said. What can I say? I was a fast learner.

{Mate!}

What? Where?

"Goddess, your Luna is looking for you." Ki informed me.

I flared. Eep! No! I mean usually, I'm happy (and I was happy that he was here), but there was another issue here...

"My kill." I said, "I found it first."

"Sam, that thing can't be killed." Ben said, "Bullet proof, remember?"

"A bullet proof rat?" Henry smirked, "This I've got to see."

"If this is some kind of pack secret, I think the less I know the better." Marcus decided to excuse himself now, "I'm going back upstairs."

"He doesn't like to know stuff that he can't tell his Alpha." I explained on his behalf.

"I prefer to avoid unnecessary moral dilemmas." Marcus nodded, "Anyway, it doesn't look like you need my help, just stay safe, Sam."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." I assured him.

"I always worry." Marcus muttered and turn to go.

"Marcus, wait. Jonah, Nix, Lola and Ethan are going up too." Harvey decided.

"S***, we are?" Jonah asked. He obviously didn't want too.

"Wait till you guys are shifted." Harvey told them first. I remembered how Harvey had bemoaned how the younger warriors were more likely to sustain fatal injuries on duty.

"I want to fight, Harvey." Lola said softly.

Harvey's mouth flattened in a thin line.

Lola looked at me and then back at Harvey, "Please, Harvey. I can do this. Don't just write me off because I'm a girl. You don't have to treat me differently."

"Come on!" I was impatient to go, "It's fine. Lola can hold her own."

"Understood, princess." Harvey managed to say without his mouth unflattening. He didn't like it.

But Mate was fast approaching with Dad and Beta Lucas. I could sense them close. If I'm going to get the kill, we needed to move fast.