Chapter 3: An Alliance Forged in Blood

Chapter 3: An Alliance Forged in Blood

The alpha’s golden eyes were chips of ancient, unyielding amber. “I won’t tell you again, Warlock. Leave.” The air in the forest clearing grew heavy, the pressure of four predators about to strike. For Finch, it was a familiar, ugly calculus: run and be seen by a god, or stay and be torn apart by wolves.

He held the alpha’s gaze, his mind racing through possibilities, each one ending in blood and failure. The warded satchel at his hip felt impossibly heavy, a cosmic bullseye painted on his back. “Your territory is about to get a lot more crowded whether I’m here or not,” Finch said, his voice a low, even counterpoint to the alpha’s growl. “The people who are hunting that,” he nodded toward the satchel, “don’t care about your pack’s laws.”

The alpha bared his teeth in a silent snarl. “Empty threats. You have ten seconds–”

He never finished the sentence.

A sound like a hornet dipped in static sliced through the air. A silver-tipped bolt, trailing faint blue energy, slammed into the pine tree right beside the alpha’s head, embedding itself a good six inches into the ancient wood. The bark around it sizzled, blackening as the potent mixture of silver and celestial energy poisoned the very life of the tree.

Everyone froze. The standoff was broken, shattered by a new, deadlier variable.

From the dense tree line, five figures emerged. They moved with the silent, disciplined grace of professionals, clad in dark, tactical gear that seemed to absorb the dappled sunlight. Their faces were hidden behind polarized visors, and they carried weapons that were a terrifying blend of technology and magic. One cradled a rifle that hummed with contained starlight; another held a crossbow that reeked of blessed silver. They fanned out, their movements perfectly coordinated, their soulless visors sweeping over the werewolves, and finally, locking onto Finch.

And the egg.

“The Anomaly,” one of the hunters stated, their voice a flat, synthesized rasp. “And its guardian. Terminate the lycanthropes. Secure the asset.”

There was no negotiation. No hesitation. The alpha let out a roar that was pure, unrestrained fury, a sound that shook the very needles from the pines. It was not a sound of aggression, but of violation. His territory had been invaded.

The change was instantaneous and terrifying. Flesh and bone popped and tore as the alpha and his pack surrendered their human forms. In seconds, four monstrous wolves stood where the men had been, each the size of a small horse, their fur bristling and their fangs dripping with saliva. The alpha was the largest, his coat the color of storm clouds, his golden eyes now burning with feral fire.

A temporary and violent alliance was forged in that moment, not with words, but with a shared snarl of hatred for a common enemy.

The clearing erupted into a maelstrom of primal fury and cold technology. The hunters opened fire, a storm of silver bolts and celestial energy blasts that tore through the undergrowth. One of the pack wolves went down with a yelp, its leg mangled by an energy burst. The others were undeterred. The alpha charged, a blur of grey fur and muscle, weaving through the deadly light show. He slammed into one hunter, jaws closing around the man’s rifle and snapping the advanced weapon in two before tossing the soldier into a tree with enough force to crack timber.

Finch was already moving. He slammed his palm onto the earth, and a wall of granite erupted from the forest floor, shielding him from a volley of silver bolts. He channeled raw power, his hands crackling with shadow-fire. A torrent of purple-black flame lashed out, not to burn, but to corrode. It struck a hunter’s protective plating, which sizzled and smoked, the celestial enchantments warring with Finch’s dark magic.

He fought with a detective’s economy of motion, exploiting angles, creating diversions. He brought a thick, grasping root up from the ground to snare a hunter’s ankle. He bent the light around another, making them a shimmering, easy target for a charging werewolf. It was a brutal, desperate dance—the raw, tearing power of the wolves and the precise, deadly art of the warlock against the cold, efficient death-dealers sent by a god.

They were winning, but at a cost. The pack was bleeding, and Finch could feel his own reserves draining. He was powerful, but he wasn't a one-man army.

Then he saw it. The alpha, magnificent in his rage, had just disemboweled one hunter and was turning on another. But in his bloodlust, he failed to see the squad leader, who had fallen back, taking aim with a different kind of weapon. It wasn’t a rifle; it was a cannon, a heavy piece of celestial steel that was glowing with the power of a captured sun.

There was no time for a ward. No time for a warning. The world seemed to slow as the weapon discharged, unleashing a spear of pure, white-hot energy directly at the alpha’s exposed flank. It was a perfect shot. A fatal blow.

Finch’s mind screamed a silent No. He couldn’t let his only ally die. He couldn't fight the rest alone. He couldn't fail this fast.

With a surge of will that felt like tearing his own soul, he activated the Pact. "Chronos!"

Reality fractured. The spear of light, the roar of the alpha, the smell of blood and ozone—it all dissolved into a nauseating, backward plunge. He felt the phantom agony of the energy blast as if it had hit him, a ghost of incineration that seared his nerves. The world re-knitted itself around him with a sickening lurch.

He was back. A mere three seconds earlier. The squad leader was still raising his cannon. The alpha was still turning, oblivious.

This time, Finch didn't hesitate. He poured every ounce of will he had into a single, desperate act. He thrust his hand out, not at the hunter, but at the earth beneath him. A massive, sharpened spike of solid rock, taller than a man, erupted from the ground with explosive force, impaling the squad leader from below an instant before he could pull the trigger. The solar cannon clattered uselessly to the ground.

The alpha, saved from an annihilation he never even saw, finished off his target and turned, his massive wolf head cocked in confusion at the rock spike that had just saved his life.

The last hunter, seeing his leader fall, broke and ran. He didn't get far before one of the pack members brought him down in a spray of red.

Silence fell, thick and heavy, broken only by the ragged, panting breaths of the wolves and the pounding of Finch’s own heart. The battle was over. He leaned against a tree, the drain from the rewind hitting him like a physical blow. He felt weak, hollowed out.

And then, it came.

The temporal scar he had just carved into reality flared, a beacon of defiance in the cosmic dark. The cold, vast awareness of Aeon didn't just notice it this time. It focused. It descended. A voice, not of sound but of pure thought, slithered directly into the deepest recesses of his mind. It was ancient, patient, and utterly devoid of mercy.

Run, little anomaly. Every second you steal is a debt. And I have come to collect.

A primal fear, colder and deeper than anything he had ever known, seized him. This was not a threat. It was a promise. A statement of inevitable fact from a being that saw all of time as its personal ledger.

The werewolves were changing back, their massive forms shrinking into battered, bleeding men. The alpha, his human form riddled with silver burns and deep gashes, staggered over to Finch. His golden eyes, no longer feral, held a new, grudging respect.

“That blast… it would have vaporized me,” he said, his voice a hoarse rasp. “I owe you my life, Warlock.”

Finch just nodded, his mind still reeling from Aeon’s soul-chilling whisper.

“The debt is paid,” the alpha continued, looking at the carnage. “The boy you’re looking for, Leo. We didn't just chase him off. He was spooked, ran right through our territory. We saw where he was heading.”

He gestured vaguely in the direction of the glittering lights of the town, down by the lakeshore.

“There’s a coven here,” the alpha said, his voice laced with an old, deep-seated hatred. “Vampires. They run that gaudy casino on the north shore. Decadent, dangerous parasites. The boy was last seen near their grounds. If he’s not a runaway… he’s either their prisoner, or their meal.”