Rebirth of a Hero? Ch. 06

"Nataly can you run fast?" Garvin asked as he shifted from his human form to a horse sized wolf.

"Yes I can," Nataly said as Malarick muttured into his staff and took off into the woods, Garvin growled and ran ahead of Malarick, Gantua started to run with Duna and Frund on her shoulders.

"Let's show them not to underestimate us mate," Val said lovingly as she spread her wings and took off. Nataly sighed and strengthened her legs with mana and ran after everyone quickly catching up to Gantua and Malarick, she slowed letting Garvin lead.

Malarick smirked when Nataly caught up and said, "I'm using wind to boost my speed and Gantua is using her giant frame. How are you running so fast?" He asked while jumping from branch to branch barely moving them and never losing his footing.

Nataly was about to respond when a thundering crack was heard, she ducked under a falling tree as Gantua said loudly, "Sorry about that but I couldn't get around it."

"That's ok and yes I'm using my mana to power myself," Nataly said as Garvin slowed.

Everyone slowed then stopped as Garvin walked around a small clearing beside a large stream, "What do you smell Garvin?" Malarick asked.

Garvin let out a series of growls in different pitches and lengths, Frund spoke up after Garvin stopped growling, "He said that this is where the ambush happened and the scent of the wolves is strong and out of place. They smell like a jungle and not of the forest, He thinks something pushed them out of their territory causing them to move this way," Garvin nodded and did a few quick growls.

"He also said that the wolves have a slightly scorched smell suggesting whatever made them move has some type of fire based attacks," Frund repeated, Garvin turned and ran towards the stream and jumped over it, Everyone followed him as he led them deeper into the woods.

After a few moments Garvin stopped suddenly and roared, Frund yelled to everyone, "Ambush!"

Gantua quickly put down Frund and Duna then kneeled beside Frund, Garvin rushed back and shifted into his werewolf form and crouched defensively on Frunds other side, Malarick landed Behind Frund while Duna stood in front.

Nataly ran to the gap under Gantuas raised leg and pulled out her gun and looked around, Val stayed in the air trying to spot the wolves only to catch glimpses as they darted around under the tree canopy, Val yelled down to everyone, "Looks theirs about ten of them, they have you surrounded.

After yelling Val quickly flew higher and zigzagged to dodge large pointed stones being shot at her from below, Malarick saw this and chanted one he finished chanting a large sphere of wind started to spin around everyone, after the sphere started stones started to fly from the underbrush randomly but where ineffective due to Malaricks barrier.

Nataly raised her gun and shifted into a .22 caliber rifle with a scope, She looked through it and saw the wolves body heat and shot at one, The wolf was caught by surprise and was wounded severely, it backed up behind a tree and hardened it's fur for its defense.

After firing Nataly was about to fire again but stopped as six stones flew towards her, four where deflected one grazed her and the last one hit her chest, Nataly stumbled back but was unhurt due to her armor, Gantua changed to a crouch and pulled out her hammer and said, "Going on the offense get ready," and jumped towards the brush.

When Gantua jumped eight stones flew towards her but only three hit, barely slowing her, She landed as she spotted a wolf and slammed her hammer down instantly killing it when she crushed it's head and half it's body.

Four wolves lunged forward and bit her, two on her left leg one on her waist and one on her right wrist, The two on her legs where ripped off by Garvin as he jumped forward and used his powerful claws to rend their throats, The one on her waist was cut on the back by Malaricks wind blade, Gantua lifted her arm with the wolf on it and slammed it into the ground shattering the wolf's jaw and chest she then lifted her newly freed hand and punched the wolf killing it.

The one wounded by Malarick ran to the others and attempted to attack Nataly, Frund and Malarick, The five wolves ran forward one in the center and two broke off to the left and right and jumped, they were knocked back by the barrier and tried again, the one closest to Nataly was shot by a shotgun blowing it's head off and causing the body to spin backwards in the air.

As they attempted a third leap Duna rushed forward interrupting them by swinging upwards smashing the leaders throat and jaw flipping it unto it's back, Duna brought her shield up as a wolf landed on it trying to bite her, Duna struggled with the wolfs weight and looked back as one wolf was shot by Nataly again this time blasting a large hole into it's chest, Val crashed to the ground landing on the last wolf snapping it's neck and killing it.

Garvin lunged towards Duna and grabbed the wolf on top of her shield and wrestled it to the ground, Gantua found the wolf that was hiding after being shot by Natalys rifle and killed by stomping on it, Duna turned to the wolf that was wheezing from it's crushed throat and lifted her shield and brought down the sharpened bottom cutting off it's head.

Garvin grunted in annoyance when the wolf he was fighting turned it's head and clamped down on his leg and pulled hard ripping flesh, Garvin growled as he struck the wolfs neck and torn it apart, He sat down and growled up at Frund, "I know i'm coming to heal you and Gantua now," She replied and started to sing.

Gantua walked up as the music from Frund became an ethereal fog that enveloped Garvin and Gantuas wounds causing them to heal quickly, "They all used stone spear, we must be careful when proceeding," Duna said as she watched Garvin and Gantua heal.

"Is that normal?" Nataly asked as she watched Frund sing a healing song.

"Normally two wolfs in a pack use it, one the alpha and the other is the beta. When the whole pack uses it it means there are four to six packs, one lead by the alpha the rest by betas. Since it was only a pack of lower wolves with no beta it means that this group has ten to fifteen packs, this has happened a few times in the past usually signaling an imminent disaster." Malarick explained as Frund finished her healing.

"I see, I'm guessing we have to kill most if not all of them?" Nataly asked as Garvin shifted to wolf form and walked around memorizing the scent of the wolves.

"Yes, normally we would go back and request for more adventurers but we don't have time to do that. All of the wolves were skinny and extremely aggressive meaning they were starving, if we don't do something soon one of the villages will be attacked or even Blostreak," Malarick said as Garvin barked and walked away.

"He asked if we were ready," Frund said as she jumped onto Gantuas hand beside Duna.

"Lead the way," Malarick said after he enchanted himself, Garvin took off with everyone following behind him, Nataly formed her spear and held it ready while holstering her gun.

As they ran through the forest Nataly noticed Malarick point his staff to her and Gantua, She looked around in surprise as Gantuas thundering pace suddenly became silent, Nataly listened and noticed that her foot steps made no sound as well.

Val was flying high above the forest and growled in annoyance as the forest below grew thicker as they ran towards the center, Val dove quickly by folding her wings and broke through the treetops and slowed down to weave through the trees just behind Malaricks jumping and sliding grace.

Nataly noticed Val following Malarick and smiled, a few moments later Garvin slowed and stopped, He shifted into his human form and crouched behind a tree.

As everyone gathered Malarick whispered into his staff and a bubble or water slowly engulfed them blocking all sound, "The den is up ahead and from what I can tell the alpha and betas are all there," Garvin explained then looked at Malarick, "What's the plan?"

"This will be difficult," Malarick said as he looked around, then starred at Val, "How big is your dragon form?" He asked her.

Val looked up at Gantua and said, "The biggest I can go is just shorter than Gantua, why?"

Mala nodded then looked up at Gantua, "I need you to rush in with Duna and Garvin, Frund climb the highest tree and boost the fighters. Nataly follow Frund and use your weapon to assist us in the fight, Val stay here and change into your dragon form and rush the den. I need you to focus on the alpha and betas while we fight the omegas." Malarick said looking around.

Gantua, Garvin, Duna and Frund all nodded as Nataly spoke up, "Can I try something before we battle, if things go wrong I'll rush into my house and when the fighting starts I'll go to Frund okay?"

"What do you want to try?" Garvin asked in surprise.

"I have a third ability which let's me become attractive or friendly with anyone or anything, if used at maximum power I could enslave anyone," Nataly explained as she lifted her face plate.

"You want to try to solve this peacefully?" Gantua asked.

"Well Garvin said they smelt burned, maybe something or someone pushed them out of their previous territory. If we can send them back then why not, clearly they had more than enough food there if their pack grew this large," Nataly said defensively as Garvin, Frund and Gantua gave her looks of disapproval.

Malarick looked around and said, "She's right, we'll let her try this and if things go wrong we will intervene, understand?" He said authoritatively.

Everyone nodded as Nataly looked at him and nodded thanks, "I'll watch from above and i'll be ready to dive in," Val said to Nataly and she opened her wings and flew upwards.

Nataly nodded and walked towards the den, She focused within herself and set the charm to 50 percent and walked into view.

Two giant wolves stood one kept it's front paw up as it watched her, the slightly smaller one beside it walked forward growling loudly causing the nearby wolves to prowl forward slowly.

Nataly held up her hands slowly and increased it further causing the wolves to stop and look at her, "I don't want to fight, I would like to know why you came here," She said to the leader who was standing in front of her.

The wolf tilted it's head to the side and then slowly walked towards her with her head down at Natalys height and watched her intently as she got closer. Once the wolf was closer it started to sniff her and circled her, once it circled her it shook it's head as a large grey gem rose from it's head, Nataly felt emotions with intent flow into her mind.

It showed anger and pain of loss at coming from a Rasque, then loss but understanding from her due to her members ambushing Nataly and her group.

"You were pushed out of your territory by a Rasque and sad but ok that we defeated some of your members?" Nataly asked.

The giant wolf nodded as it sent an image of wolves fighting and the strongest winning, the wolf then looked at Nataly intently while sending the image of wolves fighting the rasque then switched her pack members to Nataly fighting it instead along with other wolves.

Nataly thought for a bit then looked behind her and said, "Please come out slowly with weapons put away."

All the wolves stared at everyone who walked out and Val descended to land behind Nataly, The Wolf in front of her watched them intently then sent the same image that she showed Nataly along with them and wolves.

The group looked around at each other as Malarick said out loud, "We can't help them, we're not powerful enough to battle one to the death," He said, shaking his head.

"That may be for you but me and Val have fought an elder and killed it, along with everyone and the wolf pack we could be able to do it with little to no losses," Nataly responded as Val stared at the alpha wolf.

While Nataly and Malarick talked about fighting a rasque Val started to walk up to the Alpha wolf, the wolves moved out of her way when he growled at them quietly.

Everyone watched as Val walked up to the alpha and stood there, unknown to everyone behind her Val revealed her own brilliantly shining gem to the alpha, He looked at it and then into Vals eyes and asked her mentally if she could help.

Val said quietly, "I can help you, my mate is a hopeful person who wants to help everyone, if we do this can you repay us by killing these people," Once she finished speaking she sent her own memory of the cultist who attacked Blostreak and how they dressed along with the necklace of a strange circle with strange glyphs on it.

The alpha wolf sent his own memories of the same people near the forest just before the rasque pushed them out, He nodded accepting the condition, Val turned and said to Nataly along with the group, "I plan to help them, cultist from the horde where spotted nearby before they were attacked, I say we attack and find out what we can." Val said as she walked back to them.

Malarick looked surprised and then to his party, "With that revelation we should do something," Duna nodded in agreement as Frund and Garvin said yes.

"I don't like this but if they did cause this then we should stop them and fuck with their plans," Gantua said.

"How do you know it was them?" Nataly asked as Val stopped beside her.

"They all have this strange necklace, It has twenty sides with strange glyphs on each side," Val explained, Nataly looked thoughtful for a second and then went into her home.

The wolves looked around in confusion, "It's ok she just went into her den, she will be back soon."

After a few moment Nataly came out with a small plastic rectangular container with strange green objects in it, "This is called a dice set, In my world their used in various games the most famous one being a game called Dungeon and Dragons," Nataly explained as she emptied the objects into her palm, She lifted a twenty sided die up and asked, "Is this what you on the necklaces?"

"Yes," Val answered as she picked up a triangle die.

"Then the person who is leading them is probably a giant DnD fan and using it in some way," Nataly said as she was smiling triumphantly, "Knowing this I can use a book to help us," Nataly said laughing loudly.

"Why is this funny? I understand how it's helpful," Malarick asked as Nataly put the dice away.

"Because if he loves DnD so much he most likely put all his powers based on it without thinking that someone would know about it, Since he did that all I have to do is read up on some of the books I have from when I played and use it to my advantage," Nataly explained as she opened her door and placed the dice set down on the small side table in the doorway.

"Before we go we should heal them," Malarick said looking at Frund nervously.

Frund sighed deeply, "I don't know if I can heal them all but I can try the most severe cases might not be fully healed," She explained as she stepped forward.

"If you need mana to heal them I can provide you some?" Nataly offered to Frund.

"I would be grateful if you did," Frund responded.

Nataly put her hand on Frunds back and slowly put mana into her as she started to sing, The wolves looked surprised as she started to heal them all, some of them growled at Frund but them whimpered when the Alpha growled loudly at them, one of the more powerful wolves ignored him and started to walk forward.

Before they reacted the Beta female jumped on it and pinned it down quickly, it walked away with it's tail between it's legs, "Why are they being aggressive when being healed?" Nataly asked.

"They probably see it as some kind of pity or something similar," Garvin said as the alpha walked up to Frund after she healed them all and bowed sending her the memories of relief from the pain.

"I see, thankfully their leaders don't think like that," Nataly said as Frund walked back.

The alpha howled loudly and sat down waiting, the wolves close by came close to and sat down around him and the beta, "What are they doing?" Nataly asked.

"They're waiting for the rest of the pack to come back, this is about two thirds of their full pack," Garvin said as he sat down and along with everyone else.

Nataly nodded as she sat down also, after some time the rest of the pack came and waited around the alpha, once all the wolves were present the alpha started to pace barking and growling at everyone including Nataly, Val and Malaricks party.

The group saw the alphas plan of them all going to the Rasque and fighting together, the giant keeping the Rasque from breathing fire while the wolves stopped it's feet and tail from moving with magic and force, everyone else doing their best to deal damage to it.

"Simple but effective," Malarick said out loud before saying to the alpha, "While Gantua could do that I believe that She and Val if she changes form could do so by themselves. Val holds it down while Gantua uses her hammer to crush it's head."

The alpha thought about it and nodded and showed Malarick that instead of fighting the wolves would run around firing magic at it's face trying to keep it distracted, Malarick saw this and nodded, "Sounds good, How long will it take to get there?" He asked the alpha.

The alpha showed them that the pack ran for two days at a jog, Nataly spoke up asking, "Is there any way to get there faster?" The alpha then showed her that he himself could do it within a day.

Nataly smiled and stood up and reached forward and grasped a handle while offering her hand to the wolf and asked, "Can I show you something?" The alpha wolf tilted his head sideways and walked forward while sending Nataly the feeling of curiosity.

Once the wolf touched Natalys hand she open the door to her garage and stables and walked in with the wolf following, when the wolf entered Nataly explained how the room worked and could hold his whole pack He then looked around, "If you take me their as fast as you can while everyones in here we can have them all run out at once and surprise the rasque," Nataly said as the wolf listened to her, it nodded and looked back at the door.

When the Wolf walked out of the garage and started to bark at the pack, Nataly walked up to Val and said, "Where going to have the pack wait inside the garage while he takes me to the rasque. You then open the large doors and let everyone out, I'm going to see if Lily can join us for this one as well," Nataly said as the pack started to line up.

"Understood," Val said as she watched Nataly reach down and grab a handle and lift revealing to everyone the inside of the garage, as the wolves walked into it the room expanded to fit them, Malarick and his party walked in and went in and sat down near the wall.

"We will stay in here and keep an eye on everything ok," Malarick explained to Nataly.

"Thank you and it should be long, while they go in I'm going to see Lily," Nataly said as she walked into Lilys stable and found the small door leading to Chessies home and opened it slowly, "Hello? Anyone there?" Nataly said loudly.

Chessie spoke up in response, "Yes me and Lily are here," Nataly walked in through the door and saw them together, "What do you need Nataly?" Lily asked mentally.

"Well let me do some explaining first, Since everything wasn't ready I wanted to do a quest as an important one popped up so me and Malaricks party went to deal with it. Turns out there's a giant earth wolf pack of fifty plus wolves pushed out of their homeland by a rasque, rather than fight the massive pack I reached out peacefully and discovered the rasque issue so where going to help them take back their land. I wanted to ask if Lily could help with fighting the rasque," Nataly explained then asked.

Chessie looked up at Lily's face and waited quietly, "I will help you and Val fight, with us three the battle should be quick and easy," Lily said as she moved forward towards the door.