My Werewolf System 13 (Patreon)

Once school was over, Tom had directly headed home, only this time it was without his best friend Gary by his side. Honestly, after how weird his buddy had behaved the whole day, Tom knew that something was going on with Gary.

‘The broken desk, suddenly being able to send Blake flying and the pierced rugby ball... Could Gary really be a…’ He gulped before allowing his mind to finish his thought. ‘A werewolf?!’

Just one day ago he would have immediately refused to believe such lunacy. Unfortunately for the current him, it was an answer that would completely and perfectly explain all the strange occurrences today. If Gary hadn’t brought it up earlier, it might have never even crossed his mind.

As always, Tom was the first one to arrive home. His parents were both scientists working for some important company one hour’s drive away in a Tier 2 city and were therefore gone for most of the day. He was happy that their income allowed them to live comfortably in this middle class house, in their middle class city, although he wouldn’t have minded seeing them more often. By the time they came home they were completely tired out, and working overtime and on weekends was unfortunately more the norm than the exception.

Tom worked extra hard at school to avoid ending up like his parents. His dream was to one day own a huge mansion in one of the Tier 1 cities, surrounded by beautiful maids who would cater to his every wish. Just like Gary, he saw becoming an Altered as a sure-fire way to end up living such a cozy life.

However unlike his best friend he was also very interested in the technical side surrounding Altered. Tom had clearly inherited his parent’s curiosity, so he kept up to date on everything in that regard as well. Be it whenever new fossils were unearthed or any developments that might allow humanity to have more Altered.

Entering his room, it was filled with computers that Tom had handbuilt himself. There was more than one tower, and he also had multiple screens with tabs still open from months before. Sitting down at his desk, his hands were slightly shaking as his fingers hovered over the keyboard.

‘If Gary really is a werewolf, and it’s like in those movies and books, then on a full moon this could get very dangerous. He could end up hurting everyone, including his mother, his sister or even myself.’

With this in mind, Tom knew what to search for and he started typing away.

‘How to kill a werewolf.’

As usual the internet was full of contradicting information. Not counting the sites that claimed that werewolves didn’t exist, others made them out to be just supernatural beings, most likely dog-types Altered, which could be killed similarly to humans, it would just take a little bit more effort.

However, this wasn’t what Tom was looking for. He just wanted to find an easy method to verify whether Gary was one. The most common answer that came up was to use silver which was supposed to hurt those creatures to varying degrees depending on the source.

He opened his drawer and pulled out a snake-shaped silver pendant his parents had gifted him on his last birthday. He had never worn it at school because he thought jewelry was a little too tacky and didn’t really fit his style.

‘Of course it’s a snake,’ Tom thought as he looked around the room. During his childhood he had a phase when he had been fascinated by those cold-blooded reptiles and he had made the ‘mistake’ of telling his parents exactly that. From that day on, all of his relatives, including his parents, bought him presents pertaining to those creatures.

Be it snake posters, snake toys or snake movies. Unsurprisingly, he had long since come to grow to hate them. Still, for once he was glad as he held the silver necklace in his hand. However, just that wasn’t enough for him and Tom wanted something else.

After a couple hours of research. he found something else that might work, though the opinions on that were very split. It was a hypothesis that since neither dog nor wolves could digest chocolate, the same was likely true for their werewolves. As dumb as he found the idea to be, it was the best thing he could actually test for.

Rushing down to the cupboard, Tom opened it to only be disappointed.

‘I better go out and get some then.’ Tom thought.

It was a little late out at night, and he had heard his parents come home today of all days. They might be sleepy, but they wouldn’t let him go out, unless he had a very good reason for it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out ‘getting chocolate’ wouldn’t cut it.

This left him with no other choice but to sneak out via his bedroom window. It wouldn’t be the first time climbing down to leave the house without anyone finding out. Fortunately, there was a shop that should have some not too far away, so Tom wasn’t too worried, but just to be safe he still changed into a hoodie.

During the day it was largely peaceful, but everyone knew that the city had many gangs. Once the sun had set it wasn’t uncommon to run into someone belonging to one of them. Covering his own head made him feel a little safer. It was just a short ten minute walk to the nearest convenience store, so he gambled on his luck to not encounter any.

On the way he passed through an empty park, and then through a few back streets without a hinch. However, standing outside his destination there were a few older looking high-school students wearing a black band around either their arms or legs. They were smoking and drinking alcohol, with their bikes on the floor.

‘These low lives... is this really how they plan to live? Just hanging outside a shop all day smoking and drinking? Good luck getting into university!’ For a second Tom made eye contact with one of them.

“What the hell are you looking at, man?!” one of the men uttered. “You look at me like that again and I’ll bust your lip!”

Tom didn’t want any confrontation, so he quickly averted his look and practically rushed inside the shop. He went ahead and purchased quite a few large chlorate bars. As soon as he left the shop, he quickly started walking away ignoring the gang members.

‘I hope this is enough chocolate.” Tom thought. ‘The question is, how do I get Gary to eat it without it seeming odd?’

Walking through the dark alleys back, with only a few lights lighting up the area, Tom was starting to feel nervous. It was dark and there was no one else around.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of students laughing derisively and a few seconds later, a bike skidded out in front of him, blocking his path.

“I told you, no one looks at me that way and gets away with it!” The one in front told him, while the ones behind him were looking forward to a good show.

‘This shitty neighborhood! I didn’t even do anything to you! I may have thought you were a scum of society, but it’s not like I told you that to your face! I never spoke those words out to you!’ Tom gulped down hard. Outrunning someone on a bike was impossible for someone like him.

There were four of them, all with a black band around a part of their body showing their affiliation to a colour gang. Tom was considering what to do, but he was afraid resisting or fighting back would just worsen his situation.

‘Looks like there is no way around a beating. I just hope after a few punches he’ll get bored and they’ll leave.’

The one Tom had ‘offended’ hopped off his bike, while the rest stayed on theirs, likely to catch up to him if he tried to make a run for it. Tom had resolved himself to his inevitable fate, so he gritted his teeth, clenched his hands and closed his eyes as he waited for the impact from the fist that had just been thrown.

Instead, he heard a scream from the boy.

“My arm! You shithead, this had nothing to do with you! Who the hell are you?!”

Opening his eyes, Tom saw the boy down on the floor, holding his elbow which appeared to have been broken. He was addressing a man completely dressed in black with a large trench coat, who had suddenly appeared in front of Tom.

“Me? I’m just someone who happened to pass by. This world has enough dangers that we humans don’t have the need to be fighting amongst each other, yet here you are ganging up on a defenseless kid. You scum are the worst.” The man answered.

Since he was in front of him, Tom could only see that the man had long flowing hair and a solid body. Calling him tall would be an understatement, Tom estimated him to be well over eight feet. As he turned around, Tom got a good look at his face. His savior had a scruffy beard, but overall good looks. It was as if he was staring at an older version of Blake.

The other students who hadn’t gotten hurt, got off their bikes and started to pull out weapons, with the one on the floor taking out a pocket knife.

“Don’t worry about me, I deal with things a lot worse than these small time trashes on a daily basis,” the man smiled at Tom, as he ran forward to one of the students with a bike chain.

The boy panicked and lashed it out, but stepping away, the man avoided it and grabbed it. He then ripped the bike chain out of the other’s hands, and swung it at the attacker’s legs. Tom found it a bit ironic that the man seemed to have better mastery over the boy’s weapon.

Without taking a break, the man easily dispatched the other’s one by one. Without breaking a sweat he had simply knocked the pocket knife from the first boy’s hand, before kneeing him in the face.

Tom had to pinch himself, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He even took a look around to check for some hidden cameras, but of course there were none. There was no one else to witness the six of them.  It didn’t take long and the man had taken out all four of them carefully.

“Go home kid, there are a lot more dangerous things in the middle of the night and you won’t always be lucky enough for a good samaritan to help you out,” the man advised as he started to walk away.

‘Who was that?’ Tom wondered.

———

There was one more person who had snuck out from home, only in Gary’s case it was a lot harder to do so. At least it should have been, however this time, he found it a lot easier to escape their flat on the top floor. There was a lot more strength in his fingers as he grabbed onto the window ledges, and slowly went down until he reached the bottom floor. Even landing on the floor from his height didn’t result in any pain to his feet or knees.

‘Hehe.’ Gary smirked to himself. ‘Maybe this whole werewolf thing does have more perks than I initially thought.’

The meeting place set by Kai was in front of the school. He would have usually worn his normal black and red tracksuit when out, but that was also the uniform given to him by his gang. There was no reason to run around with a target on his back, instead he had selected some more plain clothing, just a white top, and some black trousers.

When Gary finally arrived, he could see Kai, standing there, staring off into the distance just as he had done on the rooftop. The only thing missing was the wind to make his hair flutter. From a distance, Gary noticed the other one wearing a black and gold Bolex watch, which just annoyed him even more, but reminded him why he was here.

“I’m here just like you asked, so what’s the job?” Gary asked, getting straight to the point.

Kai looked Gary up and down, and scoffed a little at what he was wearing.

“You got here a lot faster than I expected, seeing as I only texted you a short while ago. Did you already happen to be in the area?” Kai questioned back and Gary just scratched his head nervously and nodded. “Well, it seems to be a good thing, considering your current outfit. There’s no way in hell, I'm letting you go like that. Here!”

Kai threw a sports bag over to Gary.

“What’s this?” Gary asked. Opening it up, he found some clothing inside waiting for him. He was surprised to see that it was just his size, even though he had never told Kai that information.

“Have you already forgotten what I told you? We’ll be making a new gang and today you’ll be the one to represent us. I don’t want us to be one of those poor gangs who wear hoodies and tracksuits and harass people. The first impression counts and since this will be our debut, you’ll need to make yourself look a little nice.”

Gary looked around, looking for somewhere to change but the school was already closed and there was nowhere else. Seeing him hesitate, Kai pointed at the floor.

“It’s nearly the middle of the night, so there’s nobody to see you anyway.” Kai pointed out as he tapped his foot impatiently.

Gary wanted to argue that Kai was there, but the other’s gaze made it clear that he was starting to get irritated. Unfortunately for Gary, he was depending on Kai and couldn’t risk pissing him off. Although he didn’t want to, Gary reluctantly got changed in front of the school into the new clothes that Kai had brought for him.

Gary now had a small jacket over this white top, without a hood, yet with a collar that popped outward. The trousers were quite tight fitting, but in a material that expanded, and a matching pair of boots to go with it. In fact even though the clothes looked uncomfortable the material was very flexible making it feel quite nice on his skin.

However there was one thing he didn’t like, the colours, making him wonder whether it was his fashion sense that was off or Kai’s.

“Perfect, you actually look half-decent now. Don’t look at me like that, you should know that every gang has something that symbolises which gang they’re from,” Kai started to explain. “Before you wore red and black and now you shall be black and gold. Trust me, with how many gangs there are, this was the best available colour combo!”

Now that Kai had pointed it out Gary noticed that everything that Kai was already dressed that way. The main colour of his clothes was black, with the trim, outline and the small details golden.

“Unfortunately, your hairstyle still sticks out like a sore thumb, but we don’t have the time to do anything about it. It’s something we’ll have to solve another time.” Kai stated with a smirk as he jokingly made a gesture of cutting them off.

The two of them did not move inside since the actual meeting place wasn’t at the school. The destination was somewhere else, but no matter how many times Gary asked where they were going, after telling him it would be a surprise the first time Kai ignored his questioning.

Eventually, they reached a car park. It was a bit away from the main shopping street and other places and it also looked a little rundown, but Gary could tell from afar that it appeared to be quite lively inside. There were actually people hanging outside who acted as some sort of bouncers. The most surprising thing was that they looked to high-school students no older than eighteen.

Finally, following Kai, they entered an elevator and went ahead to the top floor. When it opened. Gary was hit with a wave of cheers and screams as if he had come to a rave party.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Gary thought.

Looking around, they were all high-school students, some even still in their school uniforms, and what they were all cheering at was a fight happening in the centre.

“This is an illegal fighting event, for high-school students only,” Kai explained, with a nasty smile on his face. “Here’s where the strongest students meet up and duke it out to decide who is the top dog!”