Chapter 126: Game Over, Goldfish

"Nova," Alpha Thunderfang called. "Stand down. You can finish roasting the Halloween rejects after I’m done with them."

"Understood, Alpha Thunderfang."

CRACK. CRACK.

Two flashes.

Then Alpha Thunderfang’s eyes went white. Pure white. No iris. No pupil. Just voltage.

Every wolf in the courtyard who could see their Alpha’s face had the same thought at the same time: those soldiers were already dead, they just didn’t know it yet.

Nova didn’t see this. Just the lightning flashes that happened with it and the strobe effect, flashing dark-white-dark-white so fast Nova couldn’t tell what was real and what was afterimage.

FLASH.

There was an image of the leader getting shocked. Literally, he was struck by lightning. In hindsight, mocking an Alpha whose entire bloodline was named after thunder was probably covered in Chapter one of ’Things You Should Never Do.’

FLASH.

A gold wolf the size of a warhorse dove at the formation like a pissed off wrecking ball Alpha.

FLASH.

Their fearless leader was knocked to the ground.

SWISH.

One of the masked soldiers swung at the gold wolf.

He missed. The wolf dodged at Alpha speed.

WHOOSH.

Every torch in the courtyard erupted ten times their height. White flame roared and the flashing stopped.

Heat rolled outward in a wave that dried the snow on every cobblestone while every snowflake in the courtyard died simultaneously. The courtyard went from frozen wasteland to summer vacation in about half a second.

White wolves made of light and flame poured from every torch. The same wolves from the Moonfire. Except these were different.

The first hit Alpha Thunderfang’s gold wolf like a power-up in a game Nova didn’t remember signing up to play. It absorbed into the wolf like air.

Level unlocked. God mode activated.

More followed. In under one second, every Thunderfang warrior, both shifted and unshifted, had absorbed a white wolf of light and now glowed, Sebastian included.

The half-dead Gamma was currently radiating like a nightlight while bleeding out, while Nova’s shoulder was failing and on fire. His weight was shifting and her arm was losing the argument. The Gamma weighed roughly double what Nova did, and she was already shaky. Gravity was going to do what gravity does and they were going down whether they wanted to or not.

She lowered him as gently as she could, then put both of her hands on his chest. She didn’t know if the gold light was actually helping or if she was performing the supernatural equivalent of putting a band-aid on a stab wound, but she was committed to the bit. She wasn’t going to let go of him until Astra told her to.

Alpha Thunderfang’s gold wolf didn’t pause, already lunging at another masked soldier. The moment his paws made contact, the soldier turned into ash.

No body. No evidence. No dramatic last words. Just gone. The universe’s way of saying nope, return to sender.

Then the screaming started but through their voice modifiers. Panic. Real panic. From masked soldiers who had walked into Thunderfang like they owned the place and turned wolves to ash without flinching. Karma was a bitch.

"KILL HER—"

Points for trying. Deductions for existing. The soldier turned to ash before the rest came out because a Thunderfang wolf had scratched its arm.

"RETREAT!" another of them ordered, moving towards his hovercraft.

Strategically sound. Chronologically late. The word "retreat" implied there was somewhere to retreat to that wasn’t already full of glowing wolves who could delete you with a paw.

A glowing Thunderfang wolf came from his left.

SWISH.

The soldier took a swing at the wolf. Blade hit fur and immediately turned to ash. The wolf piledrived the masked fucker into the dirt, and then the soldier joined his sword in becoming a pile of ash.

The Thunderfang wolves didn’t need to be told twice. They tackled every masked soldier to the ground. In under ten seconds all twelve were eliminated.

Done.

The arrogance-to-ash pipeline was closed.

Nova glanced down at Sebastian, who was blinking up at her.

"Sierra, tell her—"

"No," Nova cut him off. "You are going to tell her because we are going to get you out of here."

There was no deathbed farewell needed because Sebastian wasn’t dying on her watch.

He didn’t argue. Smart man.

That’s when she noticed the place he had been stabbed was knitting back together.

"Oh, that’s new," she commented, head tilted as she watched in fascination, like it was a mildly disturbing nature documentary that was impossible to look away from.

"Nova, I’m going to need you to explain that because my mind is going to the worst possible things," Sebastian rasped.

"The stabbing is looking better," Nova replied. "But I’m going to need you to not talk until Astra is here."

Then the white light surrounding them left them all at once, turning back into wolves that ran into the torches like employees clocking out at the end of a shift. Job done. Time card punched. See you at the next crisis.

Torches shrank back to regular height, still white. Every pair of eyes hit Nova, who was not, in fact, controlling any of it. The optics were not in her favor on that part.

Alpha Thunderfang’s voice filled the yard in the kind of tone that made everyone straighten.

"Perimeter. Now. Nothing leaves. Nothing lands. Medics to the courtyard. Get Astra. And someone get me a count on how many we lost."

"On it, Alpha," a captain called.

Orders rippled outward through the ranks, wolves peeling off in pairs, weapons still drawn. The courtyard shifted from combat posture to containment in under ten seconds, the kind of pivot that only happened in packs that had drilled for this and hoped they’d never need it.

Astra came through the doors at a speed that said she had been running before someone told her to. Kit in hand. Scanner already out.

Her eyes found the ash first. Piles of it where wolves had been. Her jaw tightened once and released. Then her eyes moved left and stopped on Sebastian.