~~Eric~~
He stared, wide-eyed, and frozen. With Jessy behind him, sitting underneath his head, it was propped up enough he could see. His thoughts were clear enough to understand what was happening now, the wolf Beast in his guts beaten and stabbed into submission by the monstrosity now fighting Caleb. How quickly Michael had beaten him, rendered him nothing more than a bleeding welp. Embarrassing.
He wanted to think it was because he'd been fighting vampires and a werewolf before Michael intervened, but he knew better. The man's ungodly weight had crushed him, and whatever he'd been stabbing him with had done more than simply stab a few times. His insides were on fire. His insides were mulch. He'd been defeated in a battle of pure brawn, and quickly at that.
Elder vampires were a breed of their own.
Caleb leaped backward, off of Michael's back, and flipped once before landing on all fours. The abomination turned to face the werewolf, but Caleb vanished into the shadow around one of the buildings. Irraka and their damn sneaky maneuvers.
"How dare you," Michael said. Some of the mouths on his body whispered raspy noises, echoing his deep, rumbling, garbled voice. "Which wolf are you?"
The shadows responded, "Caleb." At least Caleb was still in his right mind. Names had lost all meaning, when the wolf took over Eric.
Christ, he'd nearly attacked Jessy when she tried to defy him by moving away from where he'd set her. Like, an angry animal, frustrated with his mate for defying him. No wonder Caleb wanted to test him and see if he was stable when he left the wolf take him over.
The elder growled. "You think the Invictus are just going to accept this?" It annoyed Eric how the eldritch monstrosity managed to articulate well, while Eric and Caleb struggled to speak English in their transformed state; sentences longer than five words were a nightmare.
"You attacked... kin... first." Wherever Caleb was, he wasn't letting his presence be felt or found, voice echoing about randomly. Nice of him to refer to Eric as kin. Either Eric had passed his test, or Caleb was being a nice guy for the hell of it, which seemed unlikely.
The winged freak snarled, and began to stomp over to Eric, each step compounded by how the one massive arm crashed into the street with ridiculous weight. Uratha were heavy enough the claws on their feet often dug into the surface they stood on, when they needed an anchor. Michael was crushing the asphalt with pure weight; he had to be heavier than an elephant. No wonder Eric's body cracked and crumbled when Michael had flown up, and landed on him. Oh god, the man had flown with all that weight? Those wings were insane. This monster's power was immense, and Eric could only stare and watch, lying on the ground, mangled body bleeding everywhere, and head lying in Jessy's lap.
And yet, Caleb was taking him on. The Irraka did a drive by, taking advantage of Michael's approach toward Eric, and bit at the monster's ankle. Uratha teeth ripped through the thickened, armored skin, and blood gushed everywhere, splattering over the black street as Michael roared. He turned around and slammed his enormous arm down, cracking the street and leaving an imprint in the asphalt, but missing the speedy Uratha.
"Your kin was rampaging," Michael said, again resuming his walk toward Eric. "Lost control."
"No," the shadow said, "not completely. Impressive. Respect him."
Michael laughed, and came in closer, looming over Eric and Jessy. He had a smirk on his fucked up, almost bat-like face; looked really fucked up with the massive teeth poking out, up, and down from his lips.
"He's young. I can forgive him some stupid decisions considering his circumstance. But know this, Eric Tanverson: I spare your life because you're useful to the Invictus."
Eric was very tempted to say 'fuck you', but even in his Gauru form, he was still a bleeding, broken mess. He could have been sandwiched in a car crash and be less beaten up than this behemoth had done to him in seconds. And the fucker who just beat his ass signed his checks.
Underestimating the enemy was never a good idea, and Caleb was making sure to not, judging by his guerrilla tactics. Probably learned from Eric's mistake.
"Boss," Jessy said, her hand stroking Eric's furry mane on his neck, "give the guy a break. We were fighting off a bunch of Carthians, andβ"
Caleb leaped from shadows. Everyone froze, and Eric's lungs stopped working, as the werewolf, a blur of dark speed, bolted for Michael's exposed spine.
The sound of a loud crack forced Eric to start breathing again, and he gasped as Caleb flew in the other direction. Without a moment's hesitation, Michael turned around, and began walking after the werewolf, as Caleb rolled and crashed into a nearby wall, denting it, bits of concrete raining about. Something twisted and wormed left and right behind Michael, fast, snake-like. A fucking tail. Not a normal tail though, like you'd find on a reptile or mammal. No, the fucker had a giant scorpion tail sticking out from his tail bone, something he'd grown in the seconds between Caleb's attacks.