Chapter 21 - Close Call

Ryan shivered as he saw the gaze that Death Jaw was giving him. He looked at the distance he had between them and after thinking carefully he walked a bit further away to play it safe.

Star Light looked at the black Blood Clan warrior with rage as she thought about how close she was to destroying her own clan. As soon as she heard that Moon Heart had been heading for an ambush she felt like she had lost all reason. She looked at the pup that was behind her and couldn't help but feel ashamed 'for a pup to discover this when I couldn't, how could I call myself one of the Alphas.'

She turned her head back at the warrior and growled giving the wolves of her clan the order to attack. 'This wolf came here to deceive us! Then he deserves no mercy.'

As soon as Death Jaw heard her his body gave out a blue glow and seemed to have electricity coming from it. Some of the wolves charging at him hesitated while others quickened their pace to stop whatever the Blood Clan warrior was doing.

Suddenly there was a bright blue glow and where once the bloody wolf stood was now nothing but air, leaving the Tempest wolves looking like idiots."

Ryan looked at the spot confused and began looking around as he thought to himself, "Where the hell did this dude go?

That's when he heard a growl coming from above, as Ryan was about to look up suddenly he was covered in brown fur. He was startled and tried his best to push away from whatever had gotten a hold of him but he stopped once he heard what sounded like a dog crying in pain.

After a few seconds, he felt like the weight on him was slowly lightened and he could finally see the daylight. He looked around and immediately froze, next to him was Death Jaw rolling around in pain as he touched his snout.

Ryan looked around in confusion but then noticed that the thing that had pounced on him was actually Dust Thorn. He was about to thank the brown wolf but he suddenly stopped when he noticed the blood on the wolf's back. His eyes quickly moved from the blood to some sharp things that seemed to be protruding from the wolf's fur. After looking closely he saw that those sharp things were the wolf's fur that had turned into long sharp like needles.

He used his paws to point at the back of the wolf "Dust Thorn is that your fur?"

The brown-furred wolf nodded and stood proudly "Yeah pretty cool right". As he said that Dust Thorn let his fur go back to normal leaving his pelt full of blood.

Ryan looked at the wolf and couldn't help but compare him to a porcupine. He sighed and smiled on the inside 'Let me guess this is where he got the Thorn part of his name'.

He turned around and found his mother walking towards the Blood Clan warrior. She raised a paw, her claws where suddenly engulfed in bright light and she slowly dug her claws and began moving them across Death Jaw's pelt. Ryan was surprised when he saw that from where her claws made contact with the pelt smoke began coming out.

Once she seemed to be satisfied her fangs began glowing in the same light and she bit the net of the wolf that was crying in pain. She viciously began shaking the limp body of the wolf and then opened her jaws releasing and dropping the body.

Ryan looked at her and couldn't help but slightly shiver as in his mind he replaced the black wolf with himself. When she turned around and looked at him her bloodthirsty eyes disappeared and what took their place was eyes full of concern.

She ran up to him and was about to use her snout to rub his head but she quickly stopped when he realized how bloody it was. Instead, she used her other paw that she hadn't stained with blood, "Are you okay Viper Pup."

He nodded and rubbed his head on her paw "Yes mother, it's all thanks to Dust Thorn."

She nodded and turned to look at Dust Thorn "Thank you for saving my pup."

The brown-haired warrior shook his head and looked at the young blueish pup "Don't worry about it, I'm the reason he's here, to begin with. Thank god that I trained with Moon Heart for so long, that little swoop from the air is one of his favorite moves. As soon as I saw Death Jaw in the air my body moved by itself."

Ryan could imagine his father being repelled by a porcupine and almost laughed, but then he turned and looked at the bloody, limp body of Death Jaw "If he could do that then why didn't he just escape?"

Dust Thorn walked closer and pointed at the wolf "I was actually told by Moon Heart that there was someone with this ability in the Blood Clan. Based on some of the other clans who have faced him, as soon as he locks his jaws around a part of your body then it will immediately disappear. For example, he bit one of the legs of a Mountain Clan warrior and the leg vanished, after the battle, they found the leg not far from where the battle took place and according to them, it was turned inside out and almost unrecognizable. The reason they were able to tell that it was the leg is because of the unique colored fur that the wolf had. I can only imagine that making himself disappear and appear in perfect condition must have been very demanding and he couldn't repeat it again. He must have tried using you to get us to follow his orders or he was simply angry at you."

Ryan gulped down his saliva as he imagined half his body being separated from him and appearing somewhere else completely messed up.

He then shook his head to clear it and looked at Dust Thorn and Star LIght "We probably still have the Swamp Clan and Blood Clan wolves coming here to attack our camp, how confident are you in winning against them?"

Dust Thorn smiled and made his whole body covered in brown needles "Well to be honest I'm not so sure about the winning part but we can lead you pups and elders somewhere else while we give them a good lesson."

Star Light looked at the young warrior and sighed "That might be the only choice at this point, we would have a hard enough time facing Blood Clan not to mention having to also go against Swamp Clan."

"If we have Swamp Clan and Blood Clan in those two directions are there any clans on our other borders? We might be able to ask them for help."

The two wolves shook their heads "No to reach another clan we would have to go through either Swamp or Blood territory. If we were to go around by the time we asked for help then it would already be too late."

Ryan nodded and looked up at the sky 'Hey god, it's been a while since we last spoke, just wanted to ask, If I get killed this time would you still bring me back?'

After a few seconds of silence, he sighed and looked at Star Light "Mother, I actually have a plan but I'm not too sure that you will agree with it. It might affect all of the other clans if it gets out of control."

All the wolves froze and stared at the pup in silence. Then after a few seconds of processing what they had heard they quickly gathered around the pup to listen to what he had to say. If it would have been any other time they would have completely ignored the blue-furred pup, but after what he had done earlier they had no problem with it.

When Ryan saw that the wolves had gathered around him he scanned them looking for a familiar face but he wasn't there. He turned to Star Light, "Mother for this plan we will need Sun Blaze could you find him?"