Chapter 21: Next Course of Action

Daniel leisurely strode out of the restaurant without glancing back once. He wore an indifferent expression but his slightly tensed posture betrayed his actual feelings.

'What a savage aura. It was far greater than that of the Alpha rat and even very close to that of my siblings' He thought internally, seemingly picking a random direction to walk. 'Given my current injured condition I wouldn't be able to put on much of a fight.'

He clenched his fist at the bitter realization. While it was true his family possessed unfathomable might in their world, there were always a few people who were crazy enough to absolutely defy that invisible might that is the Wayne family.

His family would definitely avenge him if he died but what good would that do? Not even they could resurrect the dead.

'Power. I need more power.' His eyes glowed a faint golden-yellow, his hand tightening into a fist. 'I need to get stronger. It's about time I stopped…'

His feet unconsciously slowed as several memories flashed in his head.Memories he desperately tried to bury for years but, stubborn as cockroaches, emerged quite often.

Blood…so much blood.

He took a heavy breath to clear his head, forcefully shutting the memories out. He had to deal with problems in the present…like heading back to school to retrieve his bike.

"Tch! How troublesome" He muttered to himself. He lightly stretched his shoulders, his eyes fixed in the general direction of his school. He'd memorized the route on the way so it was a piece of cake tracing his way back.

Deciding to use the moment to take in the sights of the city, he slowly strolled away from the restaurant, unaware of a pair of glowing red eyes staring blankly at him from a window in the restaurant.

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"So what's our gameplay? We have absolutely no information on where this Alpha could be. For all we know, it could have already left the city" Sam mumbled out loud, his arms crossed in thought.

"We indeed can't rule out that possibility" Mark agreed, his eyes closed in thought.

"Then do we do a slow sweep of possible spots it could be hiding or just hope we find some trace we can track." Jessica questioned, his fingers drawing circles on the crystalline table.

"Tsk! All this sounds horribly stressful to think about" Minnie groaned in exasperation. "It was always easier knowing where the target would be"

"Hmm…Could we draw it out somehow" Amelia suggested after a moment of thought.

"We could…" Mark mumbled hesitatingly. "…But we'd need to either know what it's looking for or what it'll respond to"

"The action on the rats seemed like a retaliatory action to me. What hidden motive could there be to decimate a rat pack? " Chris said, a hand resting nonchalantly on his chin.

"Establishing dominance." Ian muttered out loud, garnering the attention of the others. "It could have been the rat pack paying some dues owed or there's a new alpha in town seeking to establish territory" He continued, his eyes shining brilliantly.

"Hmm that could explain why only the alpha was killed and the rest simply incapacitated." Mark nodded along. "If it was trying to establish dominance then it wouldn't want to kill off every rat as they could still serve as cannon fodder later."

"That does indeed make sense" Sam nodded. "It puzzled me why only the alpha and a few others were killed."

The rest of the team mumbled in agreement, acknowledging the possibility of that happening was quite high.

It wasn't uncommon for turf wars to happen between rival packs of several species and even of the same kind. Fatality ranged from mild to total annihilation.

The behaviour of shifters wasn't entirely clear to hunters nor did they seek to understand them too deeply. All that mattered was shifters were known to be savage, bloodthirsty and had a penchant for human flesh…which automatically made them enemies.

An encounter between shifters and hunters usually resulted in only one outcome…death to one or even both sides. There was hardly ever another acceptable possibility.

"Alright, while it's merely speculative it does give us something to work with and…" Ian was cut short by a strong masculine voice that hadn't spoken for a while.

"I think we're missing something" Alex cut in. "The rats have probably been here a while and yet…we're just getting wind of them"

"What…that's odd indeed." Jessica mumbled.

"For a place we call our base, we didn't get any wind of them for probably months." Alex said with a contemplative look on his face. "Their cave was dug using their claws, which would have taken weeks at least."

A chill spread down the rest of their spines at the chilling thought. Dozens of rats had silently infiltrated the city for probably months and totally stayed off the radar…till now.

"And from what we could tell, there are definitely several other shifter types in those sewers" Alex continued.

"How did they possibly evade our monthly inspections?" Amelia wondered out loud.

"Well we didn't discover that rat lair till recently" Chris spoke softly. "They're getting better at hiding themselves."

"Or we're getting sloppier" Alex said coldly.

"Tch! That's quite harsh" Sam's lip twitched atAlex's words.

"None of that!" Ian said coldly. "While we may have been quite lax given our quick increase in strength, it doesn't account for probable months of evading our notice"

"What if it weren't months" Amelia's brows scrunched in contemplation.

"That's impossible." Mark interjected. "That's assuming they dug up such a wide space underground in weeks. They might be quick with their claws but there's a lot more involved in creating such a stable space than simply digging."

"Plus no way all of that could have happened discreetly without alerting anyone." Sam added.

"Are you suggesting…the cave was already there?" Mark narrowed his eyes.

"That's even more unlikely right. How did it not register on the sonar?" Chris shook his head in disagreement.

"Probably the same reason we haven't discovered it so far" Amelia shrugged her shoulders.

"Well one thing we can agree on is they're getting smarter and there's probably more to that cave than we know but…" Ian tapped his finger on the table."…that doesn't particularly help us track down our target."

"I suggest we return to the cave and gather as much intel as we can, maybe we missed something and if we didn't then we find where those alternate holes lead."

"Well…sounds like a plan then, given we have no other leads" Sam sighed.

"I'd suggest we also keep an eye out for suspicious characters." Alex said, his eyes still closed in what was now beginning to look like boredom. "As hunters we possess keen intuitions to detect shifters and if anything our paths happen to cross a lot if within a certain range."

Ian and Amelia briefly shared a glance, wondering what the other twin was thinking and more importantly who they were thinking about.

"We'll keep that in mind." Ian nodded. "In the meantime, we should checkout the cave for clues later tonight and find out where the other paths lead."

"Sure thing boss" Sam let out a soft chuckle. "Hopefully we run into something we can beat up"

"Hopefully we don't run into something we can't."