AUTHOR'S POV, Back to Scott's home
Scott stumbled the moment the dark basement dissolved around him. The next thing he knew, he was back home. The teleportation hit him like hammer to the skull. His knees buckled. Nausea twisted violently in his stomach as though his organs have arrived seconds later than the rest of him. The world tilted sideways, and his wolf whined somewhere deep inside his chest. The lythari caught Scott's head before he hit the floor completely. "Too much lythari magic is bad for you too", Ofir murmured. "There... there.. It will all be over soon", he pats Scott's head.
A pink tinge slowly returns to Scott's cheeks as he catches his breath."Did... Diana felt this way too.. when.. when you took her out?".
"She didn't asked for too much magic… Well, she never asked for tiny bit", Ofir answered, that made Scott scoff softly. Lythari magic is never meant to be used on other creatures bound on flesh and bone. The crossing between dimensions peeled at the soul on the way through. Adding the invisibility magic that Scott asked of him, the lythari magic doubled, and its effects weighted heavier on Scott.
Laying flat on the floor, Scott could still feel the fragment of cold stars scraping against his skin. He pushed the lythari elf's hand away gently, and dragged himself towards the couch. "Don't", Ofir warned quietly. "Rest. The more you fight it, the more the lythari clings to your skin".
"Argh...", Scott gave a weak scoff before collapsing back anyway. His forearm thrown over his eyes. The lythari elf stayed beside him. A faint smile upturned Scott's lips thinking of the tiny nanny who refuses to leave his side. "That basement.. It's a room for a collection isn't it? Like a trophy room?".
"It's for harvesting powers.", Ofir said. "A collection implies admiration... What I felt there was preparation".
Scott forced one eye open towards the lythari elf. "The meta power?", he figured, knowing that for centuries, Nagualli have mastered doubling other people. However they have been wanting to copy abilities, making them theirs as well.
Ofir didn't answer. His dark eyes flickered, shifting its gaze at the Alpha struggling to keep one eye open. "No, for something more evil. There are some powers that should never exist inside one body. Yet the Nagual gathers bloodlines the way kings gather weapons.", he remembers what the Nagual promised the lytharians once, in exchange for their loyalty. Trap the lycan king, gather all the power the Nagual can get, and turn the lycan invincible to protect their kind from the werewolves. A generous deal that never made sense, but sounded too beautiful for them to refuse. That deal cost the entire clan of their kind. Thinking about it now, it's not just about the meta power anymore. The Nagual needs three powerful creatures for something else. And the lycan king is just one of them, like the original vampire it had caught. Scott's exhausted mind drifted sluggishly. His thoughts getting heavy. Too heavy to keep it awake. He kept his eyes closed, while he listen to Ofir. "Lycan King, sooner or later, the original that you freed will come to the nagual's knowledge. Be prepared, for she will strike back. Surely", he warned.
"Then, let her find me...", Scott said weakly.
"Aren't you afraid for your father, or your Luna?".
Scott thought of it for a while, but he never gave Ofir an answer. "Let me, let me just... rest for a bit", Scott's body glued on the cold floor as darkness press at the corners of his eyes. His arms loosened, as they drop on his sides.
Ofir moved forward. "Lycan King?", he called.
It was too late.
A magic slipped into the house like wet fingers crawling through the elevator. The moment Scott closed his eyes, Ofir felt the magic that's not coming from him. The lythari elf tried to wake him, but the dream have already opened its jaws to the vulnerable Alpha, unguarded by his own strength.
Scott drifted into the sunlight. It was warm. He squints at the glare that hit his eyes. And for one terrible second, the scent of the damp moss and crisp pine reminded him that peace existed. Then, he heard laughing. When he turned, he saw this family who looked very familiar that he felt a strain in his chest. It didn't take too long for him to recognize who they were.
A camera on a tripod flashed in front of them. His mother laughed first. Platinum hair dancing in the wind. Bright green eyes that matches her green dress with soft smocked sleeves fluttering around her knees as she bend down, giving butterfly kisses on little Scott. Beside them stood his father. Younger. Tall, and lean as what he have always known for. Shirtless beneath the summer heat with dark quiff hair falling over his black eyes permanently shaped into irritation. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were. One word simply went with such beautiful memory that was taken into picture - happiness.
The sunlight dimmed. The darkness filled every corners of Scott's eyes until a whole new vision cleared again. This time, he flinched instinctively at the sight of Viktor with a whip in his hand. Not because it was a memory, but because his body remembered the pain his mind did. Clan members knelt bloodied in dirt while his father circled them like a war hound. Nagual corpses hung from hooks nearby, hunted like animals for sport. Then he followed Viktor home, and it all became worse. Scott stood frozen as he watch his younger self thrown across the floor the moment he opened that door. Like lightning, the whip came down again.
Again.
And again.
His father's eyes, which he never met not even once, were black pits, as Scott looks at him without blinking. They were cruel, without one ounce of compassion that he believed was somewhere behind that tough love. "You think mercy makes an Alpha?!", his father snarled, terrified of weakness so deeply that he beat it out of everyone around him, especially his son.
A sharp sting reopened on Scott's back. Despite knowing that is just a memory playing in his mind, his legs started to move towards his younger self. However, someone faster rushed forward finally. Karin shield the boy with her body. "Stop!!".
The slap echoed horribly. His mother hit the floor, with blood trickling on her lower lip. Viktor stood over both of them breathing hard. Not regretting every little thing. "He will become Alpha the way I did", Viktor hissed. "No one will ever look down on him". Beneath the rage, Scott saw fear in his father. An Alpha who became a monster, because monsters survive longer.
In a sudden burst of light, everything shifted. He found Viktor walking a natural path in the forest. He kept looking back as he go forth. Searching, until his eyes gazed beyond the trees, to a hut with a chimney softly releasing wisps above it. Viktor haven't even knocked yet, but the door have already opened as if he was expected to come. Scott followed his father, who walked in like he own the place. The stench inside was screaming nagual despite the hut was full of herbs, potions, limbs of dead animals, snakeskins, insects and dried flowers. It couldn't be even called a home for how filthy it was. "Make me the strongest, most powerful Alpha of all clans", Viktor commanded the creature under a thick brown heavy wool cloak covering its head. "Granted", the Nagual agreed. There were neither discussions, nor conditions. "I thought you needed something in return?", Viktor asked, tilting his head. "I'll take something when it's due", it answered, with its yellow eyes glowing under the shadow of its cloak as if it has already chosen want to take.
Scott's vision darkened again as it escalated to another memory that seemed not to belong to him once more. Surrounded by trees in the dead of the night, the moonlight trailed a path that led him to his father crawling towards the full moon on trembling hands. Then came the screaming. Viktor's bones were snapping at every twist. His skin smothers as if it was burning. Not too long, black fur erupted violently through his flesh while yellow eyes glowed with animal madness. Scott swallowed a lump, seeing how excessively familiar it was to him. Every movement mirrored his own forgotten transformation that he didn't miss every terror that turned his father not into a wolf... but into a lycan. The deal that Viktor got from the Nagual. And when those rabid yellow eyes lifted toward his mother standing frozen in the distance, Scott understood the horror. The beast craved no one else but its Luna.
While Scott mulls over why such specific damnation was what his father received, he felt a pulling force, sucking him out. And in a blink, he was back home in his father's private quarters. The moonlight seeps through the only window that gave light to the room which was looking more like an infirmary. The scent of disinfectant was strong, it reminded him so much of his unforgettable childhood past. He was starting to get tired of the dream that was unfolding door after door. As he was about to turn away, the door bursted open. His father being dragged in by a man in a white coat. Scott felt angered. Seething at the sight of his father screaming in pain as he forcefully gets strapped on the bed with leather cuffs. And so he stayed. For the first time, he will catch a glimpse of what has always been behind the door where his father gets tormented by the doctor.
The doctor was young, looking the same age as Viktor. As the doctor handle the chaos in the room, he noticed something that he could hardly believe. He had a kind of gentleness in his eyes, and desperation in his movements to calm his father. He was doing everything to ease the unbearable pain of the lycan transformation, diminish the screams, and lower down Viktor's burning temperature - opposite to what he knew. As the doctor secure Viktor on the bed with chains around his body, he takes out a syringe that smell of blood. Distraught at the familiar scent of it, Scott watched closely. His hands turned to fist as he examine the face of the doctor with disbelief. Hurriedly, the doctor injected the blood into Viktor's veins. And slowly, Viktor calmed... that the two stared at each other with widened eyes. Scott gaped with his mouth wide open, realizing who the doctor actually is, and whose blood he used to calm the lycan in his father's body.
Scott's eyes were wide open when the room vanished, and shifted in to the heart of the forest. The moon was glowing as it hang up in the starless night sky, calling all the creatures that worships its beauty. A little later, something fast and big moved with the silhouettes of the trees swaying to the howls of the wind. He followed the movements, that eventually led him to his mother dragging a woman from the doctor's arms. Behind them was a young girl with startling blue eyes, who could only cry hugging herself. Karin was hysterical, crazy and wide eyed. Beside her was Kristia, the Lockwoods maiden. Horrified but obedient to help Karin. Both forcing to take the doctor's wife down with them, believing she carries the cure in her blood. In the midst of the state of wild, a massive shape darted between the trees along with the claws carving the ancient trees. Mindlessly, it wreaked havoc. Everyone was terrified but none of them moved, for they all knew it was too late to runaway.
...except for Karin.
Karin snatched the child with her strong grip, catching the doctor and his wife off guard. "Mom, no!", Scott's voice was never heard. It didn't even echoed. Frantic, Scott pulls the girl from Karin but his hands only passes through their bodies. "Don't do this mother!", he implored. His mother changed, not frightened anymore. "Choose. Your wife or this girl?", Karin growled. The child's blue eyes now wide with fear, wet with terror. Frozen in the arm of Karin snaked around her. "If you don't choose, we all die", clutching on the helpless child. Scott never saw this side of his mother, such unrelenting hostility more vicious than any beast he have ever met. Either it is a smart attempt to win a tug of war with brute force, or her mother truly has total lack of empathy towards the innocent girl in her arms.
"Karin, please", the doctor begged.
"Take me... Just leave my daughter alone", the doctor's wife pleaded. Karin's eyes flickered. It was that moment Scott read the room right. It was a trade for his mother's will to survive the night, and also, save his father. Staring at his mother in disbelief, Scott watched until he could no longer bear. No matter how hard he intervened, he was like a ghost in this realm that could only watch his mother make wrong decisions.
The doctor's wife reached for her daughter, as they exchange places. Pulling his daughter behind him, the doctor kept his eyes on his Luna. A silent connection Scott understood. Just then, a monstrous body bursted from the forest. Turning their backs, the doctor shifted to his wolf form as the moonlight reveal the monstrous figure of his patient. Scott tried to shift too, but he was powerless in the dream now shifting to a terrible nightmare.
It was towering, covered with tangled fur. Its yellow eyes glowed with unbearable hunger as its saliva hung from its jaws in thick strands. "Get back!", Scott yelled as he face the lycan. As he stood, the doctor in his wolf form passed through his body, lunging forward the beast. The lycan swung its arm, hitting the doctor. His body slammed against a tree with a sickening crack before crumpling motionless into the dirt. Kristia screamed and fled blindly into the forest. Cowardice outran loyalty in seconds.
The lycan proved the forest that he is the new king with a loud howl, as he rush towards his prey. "Diana!!", the doctor's wife threw herself toward her daughter. That name tore in Scott's ears. It resounded well enough that it shook every part of him realizing the girl was his Luna all along. He watched the doctor's wife shield Diana with her body while the lycan raise one claw towards them. It was a sacrifice of great love that cost her life as the lycan split her open.
"No!!", Scott dashed forward, standing between the lycan and his Luna. "Stop!! Don't you touch her!!", his voice louder, hoping it would be heard. The girl shrieked, and the beast lunged again. Its claws tore right through Scott, and across the child's hip before she fell. A large tear, bleeding profusely, making her lose her senses. "Diana!", Scott called knelt beside her, not knowing how to help.
Meanwhile, Karin carefully moved toward the doctor's wife's lifeless body, gathering more blood in her palms. While the lycan looms over her, Karin smeared blood on the lycan's mouth with a smile flickering across her face. She held her breath. She waited to taste the victory in her dry mouth. As the lycan slowly turn its head toward Karin, the beast did not change. Its yellow eyes remained feral, softly growling taking one step closer at a time.
Scott watched the smile on his mother fade slowly. "It's not her blood, mother", he whispered. He noticed Karin took a glance at the little girl bleeding on the cold ground. There was split-second pause in that gaze that made Scott realize that his mother learnt which life she would have traded instead of the doctor's wife before the lycan cold-bloodedly ravished her body. Scott looked away. Eyes focused on little Diana curled on the ground, sobbing in pain. Bleeding her life away with that large tear on her hip.
Then there was silence.
Scott felt weak to his knees, that he forgot to breath. He looked at Viktor tear Karin apart, until his father shifted back to his human form. From the sounds of eating flesh, blood spurting, to his father's loud cries of lamentation as he held his Luna's dead body in his hands, Scott thought this was not just a dream. It was a vision showing him his future with his own Luna. The doom that have dented his destiny.
While his father cries for the death of his mother, a creature hiding under a thick brown heavy wool cloak covering its head appeared from the shadows. It approached the wounded girl, hover around as if waiting. "Nagual", Scott murmured. The creature removed the cloak, only to reveal that she have hidden under the skin of the doctor's wife. "You're safe now, daughter", she then walked away, with the wounded girl in its arms.
Scott woke up, drenched in cold sweat, catching every breath. He found himself on the couch of his home, with the lythari elf standing beside him. "I told you she'll strike back", Ofir hands him a glass water as he welcome the Alpha back to reality who was tormented by the Nagual in a series of nightmare.