The Blue-Eyed Beast was hungry. In a metaphorical sense.
Marco could feel it. In a physical sense.
Thats how it was to become the beast. That's how it was to become something beyond himself. Nothing as glorious or simple and thrilling as a transformation into your true form. No, not all. Becoming the Beast was to become something beyond man..... beast ..... himself. Something beyond many selves.
It frayed his sense of being and put him in an ice-cold state of glacial rage. Something chilling. Something unmoving, always watching. Permanent.
Sometimes it felt like he was watching the Beast from above. Other times he was its hands with claws like hooks or the canines lining it's jaws-- watching the consumption. Living it, from the wayside. But now. Now he was aligned. Perfectly. Like a blade that was once slammed against a stone. The vibrations finally stopped. Stillness held the two minds. Melded them. Like man and beast.... fully synthesized.
He watched the enemy. Truly. Time ran slower in those moments as his senses sharpened and took note of everything. Pieces of fabric and gun smoke in the air. Beads of sweat rolling down Deaton's bald head. The veins in Gerards hand glimmering in and out of purple like LED lights wrapped his bloodcells.
The Warlocks and Argents stood behind Gerard. Faceless and evil like shadows in a bad dream. Thats all they were. Pieces of a bad dream.
"Marco..." Stiles whispered. Despite everyone's shock, they faced the enemy. Transformed and ready for war. But Stiles. Marco could almost feel the cogs turning in his brain.
Marco growled to silence him. To make him wait.
Gerard continued to stare, smiling. Laughing. He found it all humorous. He was mad.... and changing. The head of the Argent family. Alison's grandfather brought into town by a death in the family, and radicalized by so much more....
If the Warlocks were an endlessly hungry dragon consuming and controlling all, then Gerard was the meal. The prey. Even more so than the Shifters in a sense.
Marco found his target. He found what was getting a rise out of the markings on his arm-- they pleaded to be released. He'd oblige. In time.
Suddenly a faint click sounded off from somewhere behind the Hunters. His nostrils flared, taking in the new scents of fur and blood.
And there it was.
Gerard clapped, moving forward to take the stage he so enjoyed, "Ohhh how fit--"
Marco pounced. He cleared the distance between them in a blue-eyed blur thanks to Gerards arrogance and grabbed him by the face, slamming his head into the gym floor with a deafening boom.
At the same time, the backdoors into the gym burst open as Erica and Boyd entered the scene, ripping into the closest Warlocks they could.
The rest of the pack's hesitation ended the moment the first shot rang out.
The war had begun.
Marco held down Gerard. His claws extended, curling into the skin of his face as it bubbled. It felt as cold as death.
"heheahahaha....You're....f-" Before Gerard could finish his words mid-punch, Marco caught his fist and ripped the old man's arm off.
Blood sprayed like a flailing hose as Gerard yelled in pain.
Suddenly a series of stinging sensations like bug bites lit up his backside, followed by the smell of blood and metal. Marco rolled, rising up onto his feet holding Gerard as a bleeding meat shield.
"Put him down now!" The Warlock yelled as his comrades fought with the others. He could smell Deaton's fear as he sat strapped to his chair beside him. In the line of fire.
"Fuck..."
Marco threw Gerard at the gunman despite the state the old man was in. The everchanging state. Before the two collided, he raced over to Deaton, kicking him off the battlefield and behind the bleachers. The sound of the chair legs screeching across the gym floor failed to blot out the sounds of wings flapping in the wind.
Marco felt the eyes on him. He ducked and rolled just as a series of silver bullets whizzed overhead. Before the Warlock could fire again, he ran for him on all fours, smashing his massive shoulder into the mans ribs.
He could feel them snap beneath the Kevlar vest. He could feel that same snapping feeling when he ran his hands across the middle aged mans face and cut through bone.
"hehehHAHAHAH!!" A laugh from the deepest ring of hell resonated through the gym's madness. The fur on Marco's body rose to attention. Old wounds reopened and festered with the voracity of a million maggots. The memories of that night returned. The night his mother talked about.
The night it was in the sky.
Marco grabbed the dead Warlocks rifle. It felt like a nerf gun in his hands as he scanned the battlefield.
Derek, Erica and Boyd fought together like they were close in another life. Ripping and tearing anything that moved. Isaac and Stiles slipped through the battlefield, taking out the stragglers that went for Scott. The True Alpha was a target they couldn't take down. He looked different. Larger. His skin was darkening like Derek's, his fangs long and violent as they dripped with blo--
"Focus, Beast." Gerard's voice echoed from above.
Marco jumped backward, landing on his back and sliding as he aimed his rifle up at the ceiling and fired at Gerard.
The bullets bit into the weak ceiling, causing dust and pieces to fall as Gerard leapt and crawled out of the way. He wasn't so old anymore. And he wasn't so human. A dragon-like wing ripped through the fabric of his white button up at his back. Purple-black scales crawled up his throat and down his arm.
Gerard didn't attack after Marco's magazine went empty. He just watched, hanging to the ceiling like a gecko. No, a Kanima.
He smiled down at Marco. Arrogantly, "Come onnnn, beast. If I wanted to face a gun, I would fight my own. That is not a weapon for you to command. The weapon of man is for just that..... man. That which we are not."
That's what he wanted. A fight. A classic battle to remove the last Grey Lion of an old hunt. He probably didn't even know why he wanted it. Then again, Gerard was sick, he wanted them all dead.
So be it.
Marco reloaded his rifle with a fresh magazine in a blur and kipped himself up onto his feet. He walked through the battlefield, eyes up on Gerard as he crawled after him above. Every few steps, Marco aimed his rifle and shot down an oncoming Hunter without looking. When the clip emptied, he reverted back to removing throats and armor with his claws. And then he reached his spear, pinning a dead man to a wall.
Another Warlock came up behind him, before he could swing his silver blade, Erica tackled him out of frame.
Marco grabbed his spear. As his massive hands wrapped around the weapon, he could see the many that held it before him in his minds eye.
His Pride. His sisters all tried to wield the painful silver spear, but only one could. She would no longer. The red in her eyes had died.
He was all that remained in whole. The markings on the other hand...
Marco ripped the spear out of the wall.
He turned around to find Gerard standing across from him. A horn now ripped through the skin of his forehead. The old Monster rolled his shoulders and ripped off his shirt. Runes burned into his body gleamed. Fresh. Recent. They glowed much like Marco's own markings.
The two pressed each other and engaged in combat. Marco used his explosiveness and experience to lead the tempo of the battle. He cut and stabbed Gerards human portions, they healed slower-- making him lose more blood. Gerard had the tools to even those odds the moment his tail ripped free of his pants.
The longer they fought, the more wild Gerard became. The less of himself he became. Marco wasn't so different. The Beast fought for prominence, that synthesis they once had wiggled and burst out of frame every time he took a hit. Every time more blood spilled around them.
"AHHH! YOU'RE ALL FILTH!" Gerard roared, spewing tufts of purple fire that ignited the Warlock corpses on the ground.
Marco stabbed his spear into one of the corpses and flung it at Gerard like a fireball. Gerard swatted the dead body out of the way and flew at Marco with a flap of his wings. He was almost fully transformed.
Marco lunged at him with his spear, relishing in the burn of Gerards supernatural flesh as his Silver spear plunged through Gerards chest. Gerard didn't care and picked him up as they flew towards the ceiling.
Gerard spit balls of flame at him all the while. Marco bobbed and weaved, feeling the flames catch onto his dreaded mane and bulbous shoulders until they crashed into the ceiling and burst through it.
The midnight air felt refreshing on his seared flesh.
"TO THINK!....." Gerard started as he grabbed Marco's arms with his one arm and tail. His strength grew the more the scales spread. "I came here to find Wolves..... Wolves like Scott and Derek. Products of the lies my family fed their kind centuries ago. And here I find you!.... HAHA!.....Something from afar. Something to test my steel against. You and yours made me stronger, Marco. I will be the enemy of all you bestial filth. Even beyond Beacon Hills..... I will cleanse.... evvvverything..." As he finished speaking, his transformation complete. The last horn emerged. His claws coated in paralyzing toxins. His eyes like the flames below.
The Fully Evolved Kanima, empowered by Warlock Runes and influence. The very thing that burned his family to ash. It wasn't Gerard that burned his past life away, but he wore it's mask proudly.
Marco bared his fangs, ignoring the flames burning his shoulder.
"What?" Gerard didn't sound human. His voice came out as reptilian croaks and hisses shaped around human words as they hovered in the air above the school.
"....Are you sure you want to be enemy of all?"
Gerard smiled and steam began to roil from his mouth.
"I think you need to worry about them beforehand..... their spirits burn at the sight of you.... they burn me..."
"...Who?" Gerard said as flames began to rise up his throat.
Marco didn't need to answer. His sisters would for him.
Marco twisted his right arm as he dodged the massive torrent of flames. Gerards claws severed the remains of the mountain ash bandage. The wrappings fell from his shoulder and the entirety of the ash-colored markings began to glow, no longer a cold blue, but instead a bright flaming red.