A Werewolf In Under-Town

“Now, personally, I don’t care who or what you hunt.” Vance was saying, back in his human form.

Shaggy was back in his werewolf form. The old werewolf had told him to change once they were out of the shantytown that was North Under-Town and into West Under-Town. Shaggy hadn’t thought there would be much difference between the two until he started seeing actual brick buildings instead of sheet metal shacks. As he understood it, Under-Town was built on top of the ruins of old Austin, Texas, but he hadn’t seen any proof of that until now.

There were even bits of pavements from roads here and there. Even some three story tall brick office buildings. There was what looked like a collapsed metal factory off in the distance and his lupine nose could pick up the smell of metal and brick coming from all around. It seemed that this section of Old Austin had been a factory district or something. Lot of old brick buildings and few homes or stores.

Shaggy could tell that this place was more inhabited, too. By the smells, but also by the various wisps in his vision leading every which way. Blue and yellow wisps crisscrossed in his vision, trailing through the air toward their owner. So far, the only red one was still Vance, who was going through a hunter registration spiel.

“… and the city of Austin will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. Also, any and all packs associated with you will also be fined.” Vance stopped in his speech as he seemed to hear what he was saying.

“Wait. That doesn’t make sense. Packs?”

Shaggy sat his large canine rump down and looked at Vance questioningly as the old werewolf dug through his pants for something. Eventually, Vance seemed to find what he was looking for and pulled out a folded up piece of paper. He unfolded it and read it quietly until he got a certain section and began aloud.

“… Any and all packs…? Well shit. This is what happens when you have Non-Weres write the ordinances. Cause this doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Vance shook his head and tore up the piece of paper.

Addressing Shaggy, he said. “Okay, Scrappy, listen up. You can only be a part of one pack. If you are in a pack, you're either an Alpha or a Beta. If you are not part of a pack, then you are an Omega, A Lone Wolf. Now there’s nothing wrong with being any of them. Every society has Leaders, Followers, and those that want none of either.”

Shaggy nodded his canine head in understanding. Seeing that he was following, Vance continued.

“Now Pack, don’t just mean other wolves. Pack can be any group of people you trust implicitly with your life. But the Alpha/Beta dynamic can get tricky if you are in a group of Non-Weres because the Normals don’t think in such black and white terms as us. But the rules are generally the same. One leads, others follow. If you ain’t leading, that’s fine, but if the others have accepted you as their Alpha, they may find that they are a more cohesive group overall. A perk of our Lupine nature. Just remember, you get one Pack at a time. Sure, you can leave a pack for a bit until you establish or join a new one. But you can only be a part of one. Capisce?”

Again, Shaggy nodded and yawned his giant maw. He felt antsy in his wolf body. He felt like he wanted to run, to play, to hunt. They had barely been standing in the street for a few minutes and already he had to stop himself from getting up and circling Vance. He settled with raising a back paw and scratching behind his ear. He found that doing so calmed him down and it felt fantastic.

“Okay. So where was I? Oh yeah, hunting. Buy a license or the City of Austin will blah blah blah, fire and brimstone. Also, there are three major Packs in Austin. Two of them are for Magical or, as they like to call themselves, Natural Weres. These are Weres who were born or turned with a bite. Non-Magical Weres such as Mutants and those created by science, mad or otherwise, are called Mutts. But only by the Magical Weres. I won’t bore you with the minutiae of Were politics. Just know that some Magical Weres can be a be a bit… purist when it comes to bloodlines and all that.”

Shaggy stopped scratching and stood up on all fours. He barked a question and pointed at Vance with his nose. Vance, thankfully, seemed to understand.

“Me? I’m a natural born Were. But I am also an Omega, so all that purity of the bloodlines shit isn’t for me. The Mongrels, that’s the one Mutt Pack in Austin, are a much more fun group of people, anyway.”

Shaggy nodded, before he got bored and started watching the wisps of color float through the air. Vance patted Shaggy furry shoulder, and the two started down the street again. The bits of pavement here and there in the road made the entire area look like a set from some apocalypse Holovid. Vance continued his speech as they moved.

“So, with the official statements out of the way and us in what we can both consider hostile territory. I can now get to the fun stuff. Every wolf should know how to hunt. Now, like I said, I don’t care what you hunt. But, normally, as a wolf. You should hunt for food.”

Shaggy gave a gagging sound in his throat at the thought of eating people. But Vance slapped him hard on his flank.

“Oh, none of that. You’re a wolf, damn it! But I figured you’d get squeamish, so I brought us here. To where those odd-looking animal people originated from. Hopefully, you don’t mind hunting the people who attacked your friends?”

Shaggy yipped happily.

“Good. Now first thing to note. Wolves are not Ambush Predators. We are Coursing Predators. Which means we hunt our prey for days if necessary. We track them, study their habits, single out the weak ones, find a target, and take them down. Have you got it?”

Shaggy nodded his enormous head and did a circle in the dirt excitedly.

“Okay then. First step: Tracking. I know that you have been seeing those little motes of color in the air, right?”

Another nod.

“Good. Now those are how we wolves see scent trails. Now they are colored differently based on the wolf. But usually a color will be for the Normals, that includes non-magical Aliens and such, another color will be for Mutants or those made up of a mix of scents, then you get the danger color. That color is reserved for known threats. But here’s the trick: you have actually known that the scent is that of a threat and sometimes figuring that out can get you hurt.”

Shaggy huffed at the deluge of information and restlessly ran up the road and gazed back over his shoulder at Vance. He could guess most of this already. It was annoyingly simple. Also, the fact that the only red color scent he had came from Vance was both comforting and annoying. He really hoped there were other challenges down here. Otherwise, taking over Under-Town was going to be boring.

Vance chuckled as he hurried along, still explaining. “Also of note, is the fact that we can’t smell magic. Sure we can identify the stuff magic leaves behind. Fire and ice and such. But on a person? No way. But your ability to identify scents will grow and grow until you can identify something just by the color of its scent trail. But for now I’ll lead us toward where will be hunting, but I want you to keep you nose up and try to follow the scent as well.”

Shaggy shuffled his head in annoyance, but he let Vance take the lead as he picked out a scent trail from the air. It was a yellow one that seemed to go in the same direction as Vance, so he started following it. But soon the scent trail made a hard right and disappeared between some buildings, but Vance kept going straight. So Shaggy picked a fresh scent and mentally checked the old scent off. When he did, he noticed something.

The yellow scent trail greyed out. He could still mentally select it and followed it. But since he had decided that it wasn’t the scent he was looking for, it was now blending into the background. He happily chuffed as he followed the new scent trail. Vance momentarily glanced back at him, but the old werewolf soon turned back to what he was doing. Shaggy was so enthralled with following the new yellow scent that he missed that Vance had stopped.

Shaggy almost ran into the old man as he slid to a stop. Glancing up, he saw that the old man was in the middle of the street looking at a group of three humanoids. The one in front was a human man with giant gorilla arms grafted onto his body. He was flanked by a man with octopus tentacles for legs and a green praying mantis-looking individual. Octopus man was holding a metal bat, trying to look menacing as the mantis-person just folded their arms across their green exoskeleton chest plate. Gorilla-arms pointed a hairy finger at Vance and shouted.

“Hey! Old man, give us the dog and your money and we’ll let you live.”

Shaggy snorted. He was annoyed at being called a dog, but Vance just chuckled. “Oh no, Shaggy. Ruffians. Whatever shall we do?”

Shaggy snorted again and stuck his nose in the air. Trying to show that they should ignore them. But Vance shook his head.

“No, no. They have been following us for a few streets now and I will bet you missed their scents entirely.”

Shaggy did his best not to make eye contact with Vance. He had been focused on following the one scent trail. So he didn’t look at the others. Vance shook his head and moved to the side of the road.

“When on the hunt, you must always be on the lookout. Not just for prey, but for ambushes as well. It looks like you have been ambushed. What do you do?”

Shaggy barked. Annoyed at the old man, who seemingly wasn’t going to help. Vance stuck his hands in the air in a ‘not my problem’ gesture. Meanwhile, gorilla-arms seemed to get angry at being ignored.

“Hey, old fucker! I’ll pull your god-damned arms off. Stop talking at your mutt and hand over your money.”

“Hey, Magilla? I think we should just go.” Octo-man said staring at Shaggy.

“Shut it, Peebles. That mutt will make us a fortune with the Phreaks. Manny, you go pin it down and I’ll go handle the old man.”

The green mantis-person started jogging toward Shaggy, a long green bladed appendage appearing from under their arms. Shaggy backed up a bit. He wasn’t really used to fighting as a four-legged animal, but he figured he could bat the green sucker away pretty handily. Manny must have taken his retreat for fear, because the Mantis-man sped up and jumped into the air, blade-arms pointed at Shaggy’s flank.

Shaggy swatted at the green missile with his right fore-paw as hard as he could. He didn’t want a body stuck on his claws, so he kept them retracted and hit out with his paw pad. He felt his paw collide with Manny, sending the poor mantis-person flying off to the side. Manny crumbled into a ball and slammed into a nearby building. Shaggy smelled blood and saw a green substance leak onto the wall where Manny had hit. He sighed wearily and glanced at Peebles.

The Octo-man was shaking, visibly terrified. But not at Shaggy. He was staring wide-eyed at the other side of the street where Vance had been. Shaggy looked over, seeing the old werewolf standing against a building, Magilla lying on the dirt road just in front of him. Next to Vance laying against the building were two furry arms. Shaggy felt his doggy eyebrows go up as he realized Vance had ripped Magilla’s arms off.

Vance waved a hand at Peebles. “Will you be finishing it?”

Shaggy glanced back at the Octo-man and waggled his head in thought. Eventually he let out a mighty bark and watched as Peebles took off running, glancing over his shoulder occasionally at the terrifying pair. Shaggy snorted as he moved over to Vance and looked down at him. Vance shrugged.

“Your choice. Well, let’s continue, shall we?”

Shaggy nodded as he picked up a yellow scent trail and continued to follow the old man. This time, he tried to monitor some of the others. He found that as he moved, he kind of got a sense of how far the other scents were from him. He could even pick up Peeble’s scent now. Although it was getting further and further away.