"Zac! Zac!" The sound of another person yelling could be heard from high above, as Ying took to the skies to try and spot him.
Thankfully for Zac, the foliage above was dense, and his dark fur meant he perfectly blended in with the shadows of the forest.
As Fredrick came crashing closer toward Zac, Zac ran, clutching the silver blanket to his chest.
Even without using his arms and running on all fours, Zac was still extremely fast, slipping through the forest like a shadow.
'I need to go back at some point, or they'll keep searching for me. I don't want Fredrick and the others to waste their time, thinking I'm in danger or lost.' Even though Zac was pessimistic and cynical, Frederick's kindness had come through to him, and so he crouched down, a few hundred meters away from the yells that were calling his name.
In the dense forest, a hundred meters might as well have been a few kilometers, searching for anyone or anything in such a small space would take hours, as one would have to comb the undergrowth, moving slowly through the forest.
Zac squatted down, closed his eyes and focused on his Mana Core, it was now a dark blue color, matching his fur.
'Alright, it's got to have been long enough. It's definitely been longer than the time between when I transformed back from the newt-hybrid and when I touched the wolf.' Zac thought.
Zac pictured himself as a human, thinking of the scrawny, pale teenager he saw in the mirror every day, and as he focused, the color of the Mana Core slowly changed from dark blue to a bright, glowing white.
[Oh f****. Not this again.] Zac took a deep breath, bracing himself for the inevitable pain.
The white Mana Core send thin tendrils of mana all throughout Zac's body, this time, since Zac had pictured his entire body as human, rather than focusing on any one part, the transformation was occurring all over.
Zac clenched his mouth shut, and the mana all around his body began the first step of the process, rewriting Zac's DNA, returning it to the DNA of a young human male, removing all the Forest Wolf portions that had been spliced throughout.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!' Zac screamed in his head, as his bones and muscles broke down again, the mana supplying the energy his body needed to restructure itself.
Blood poured out form a corner of Zac's mouth, in his pain, and as his jaw had reshaped itself, he had bitten down on the enormous wolf tongue that was in his mouth.
All over Zac, his skin changed from the dark color of the wolf's to the pale color of his human skin, massive clumps of fur falling out all around him.
Zac twisted and writhed on the ground, turning from a wolf hybrid, into a bag of flesh and bones.
HIs limbs shortened, and his muscles shrank, and the fangs that lined his mouth turned back into the flat teeth of a human.
Zac was gasping for breath, and as the tail that had extended from the base of his spine returned to his body, and his spine shifted, he almost screamed out loud.
"F****** s****. B***** m************. Zac let out a muffled string of curses, as the pain faded away, and he opened his eyes.
He looked around, blinking a little at all the colors that had been absent in his wolf vision, then he looked down, and saw the thin legs, his thin torso with his ribs standing out, and the faint wisps of hair on his chest.
Zac looked behind himself, and heaved out a sigh, the tail was gone. Standing up, Zac inspected all around his body, and brushed off a few wisps of fur that were stuck to him.
The silver rescue blanket lay just within arm's reach, and Zac grabbed it, wrapping it all around himself, and turned back around to the way he had come, where the loud yells of the Augmented still echoed out, calling his name.
"I'm here!" Zac yelled over and over, crashing through the forest, back towards the clearing.
"That you, Zac?" Came Fredrick's response as Zac drew a little closer, and Zac yelled out in response. "Yes, it's me!"
Zac almost ran into Fredrick, the enormous M-Type Augmented was crouched down, peering into the forest towards Zac.
"Woah there!" Frederick yelled, as he caught Zac, stopping him from slamming headfirst into one of his enormous machine legs.
"You alright, kid?" Frederick asked, and Zac nodded enthusiastically, the blanket clutched tight around his shoulders.
"What the hell happened?" Frederick asked, a concerned frown on his face, as he guided Zac back toward the clearing, a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"I wanted to help the survivors, get them out of the clearing. So I was sneaking around toward them, but then I was attacked by one of the wolves." Zac said, keeping to the truth as much as possible.
"Alright, what happened then, kid?" Frederick knelt down next to Zac, and nodded encouragingly at him.
"I climbed a tree, but it kept coming for me, I thought I was done for, but then, then, another Augmented attacked the wolf, it happened so quickly, in a blur, that I didn't get a good look at who it was. But the wolf was dead. I was still scared, so I ran off into the forest." Zac stumbled over his words a little as he thought of a lie on the spot, hoping that Fredrick would, once again, buy into his lies.
By now, they were in the clearing, and Ying and Jay were listening to Zac's story curiously.
"Right on, son! You did good staying alive! Climbing a tree when pursued by a Forest Wolf, that's a good head on your shoulders." Jay called out, a big grin on his face.
Meanwhile, Ying's yellow eyes were narrow as he stared at Zac. Anyone else would have missed it, but his enhanced eyes could see the tiniest speck of blood on Zac's chin.