As King and Cain stared at one another, Able spoke through his host, pleading for his brother to change. The Dark Wolf, however, paid no heed to his younger brother, but instead began to mock him. It was now very clear that Cain was truly lost to his own desire for power. King could feel Able's pain from feeling so helpless to help his brother, so, the two Alphas charged.
Meanwhile Sam and Hench were also fighting, but it was the Omega who was proving to be the better of the two. The evil Alpha tried to go for Sam's neck, but he dodged and headbutted Hench in the side, sending him into a nearby tree. As the Alpha staggered to his feet, he saw that his other Alphas were being forced to flee for their lives.
"Drive them from our home!" Rex shouted. "Make the land safe again!"
"No!" Hench cried. "No retreat! Push forward, we are pure Alphas! We can win!"
But his words did little to nothing to motivate his fleeing soldiers. Before Hench could react, Eve and Kate tackled him and pinned him under their combined weight. There was nothing for him to do but accept surrender.
"Do you hear that, Cain?" King and Able asked. The Dark wolf listened, his ears picking up the faint sound of the retreating Alphas.
"That is the sound of your final defeat. That is the sound of our victory. And now, you are going to HELL!"
Then King summoned all of Able's power for one final attack.
Cain's eyes widened when he saw the beam of pure energy coming right at him.
"I'll be back!" were his final words, but King and Able only smiled.
"The hell you are," they said in unison.
Down in the valley, Kate and Eve had handed Hench over to a group of Rex's Alphas. The once powerful rouge looked at the wolves around him. They stared daggers at him and began whispering among each other on what to do to him. Hench felt really worried, so he began to beg for his life.
"Please spare me!" he cried, "I was forced to help Cain. I didn't really want to help him."
His pleading only irritated the wolves of Rex's pack. Rex looked at him and smiled.
"Really, from what I learned from Runt, you helped maim him. Then, you tortured Anna. Do you know how scared and stressed she is?"
"Enough!" King shouted as he walked up to the others, all shocked at his new appearance. Turning to his old second-in-command, the old Alpha stared at him and sadly shook his head.
"Hench," King said after a brief silence, "I have never let the guilty go unpunished, but I have never met a wolf who had fallen so far that he would attack two young Omegas. What you did was wrong, but… I forgive you."
The was a loud gasp from the others. Hench was equally shocked, but King wasn't done yet.
"For the crime of kidnapping, assault and attempting rape my granddaughter, you have been found guilty. I however will show you mercy. I am letting you leave with your life, but if I ever see you again, I'll kill you myself."
When King finished passing sentence on Hench he asked his former second-in-command if he had anything to say.
Hench did in fact have something to say to his former leader.
"Go fuck yourself!" he growled at King.
"Take him to the boarder and see him off," King responded with a growl. The other Alphas nodded in obedience with King's order. Then, turning back to the others, King looked at Runt. His young body was riddled with cuts and bite marks, but what was the most disturbing was his eyes. Runt was blind, his legs broken and his spirit crushed. If there was something that could be done to help his daughter's friend, he hoped the spirit within him could.
Then it became clear...
"Able!" King said. "Can you help Runt?"
Able then phased off of King and looked at the young omega, then back at King.
"I will help him," he said softly. Kate, Eve, and Anna looked up at Able as he placed his paw on Runts head.
"You have a life worth living Young Marcus. By the power of love and hope, be healed and see once again."
And right before their eyes, Runt's wounds were healed and his eye sight was restored. The young Omega's family rushed forward and embraced him, overjoyed that he had been healed by Able. Kate and Humphrey couldn't help but feel like they owed the White wolf something for his service he did for their son.
Able had only one request, to live life to the fullest, with love and happiness. After that, he turned to Rex and offered him some good advice.
"When a leader only thinks for himself, the pack will fall apart. But when one should think of how he can lead with a heart and wisdom, then his rewards will be great. That is why you—Rex, father of Humphrey—were chosen to lead Tranquility Pack. Follow my words of wisdom and you shall live long and have many to pups to take up the mantel of leader after you."
Then, Able faded away, leaving the other to take in wisdom he had offered as he finally found peace.
However, there was one who was still none the wiser.
Hench was already sneaking back into the territory, intent on getting his revenge.
King is weak. He has shown his true colors as being nothing more then an Omega, Hench though to himself. I bet even his daughter is weaker then-
"Got it! Terra is his main weakness!" Hench shouted.
It was now all up to him, for if Terra was to die, then King would would go back down a path of darkness.
As Terra waited by the river for the others to return, she had no doubt that Sam would be excited to learn that he was going to have another pup. She had always wanted a son, but if was a girl then she and Sam would still love her with all their hearts. Anna would also love being a big sister to the pup, and with it only being a few months away, Terra could hardly wait.
The sound of running footsteps caused her to turn to see Hench coming at her. His teeth bared as he lunged toward the pregnant female. Terra screamed as he tackled her, and then, Hench bit into the side of her neck. Terra felt the sharpness of his teeth digging into her flesh, but before he could do any real damage, someone knocked him over.
Terra looked up to see her mate, Sam standing over her, His eyes full of rage.
"You heartless dog! You have really done it now, first King showed you mercy, but you chose to throw your life away," Samuel growled at Hench.
Hench smiled and shook the dirt from his fur.
"Mercy is for the weak, and King in nothing more than a weak Omega like yourself Samuel," he said, then cast his gaze toward Terra, who for the safety her and her unborn pup, was staying behind her mate.
Sam snarled at his foe.
"I'll show you weak, Hench!"
"Then lets finish this, you stupid fucking MEG!" Hench snarled back at Sam.
Then, all hell broke lose.
In an instant, Sam and Hench were biting and clawing at each other, their teeth only just coming within inches of each others' throats. Off to the side, Terra watched on as her mate battled the demented wolf that had served by her father's side, his unkempt, emaciated body making him look like a rapid monster instead of a wolf.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Terra was pulled from her thoughts by the cry let out by her mate. Looking to Sam, Terra's eyes widened to see that Hench had landed a direct to Sam's face with his claws, resulting in wound that went from the Omega's right temple and over his eyelid. Fortunately, Hench's claws hadn't been able to damage the eye itself, which ensured that Sam still had a fighting chance.
But that was not to say the pain was any less present.
"Oh," Hench mocked, "if you think that hearts, just wait till you see what I have planned for Terra."
Upon hearing this, Sam's pupils dilated as he was overcome with a new feeling that up until that point was all but foreign to him.
Feral Rage.
With a massive growl and a bark, Sam charged at Hench, who, while preparing to offer a counterattack, was completely caught off guard at the sheer ferocity of his opponent's attack. At that point, the rescue party had returned and were alerted to the struggle by the snarls and growls. When they arrived at they seen, they all stood wide eyed at the sight that befell them;
Sam, his hackles completely raised, his eyes wide with rage, as he viciously attacked Hench with a barrage of of swipes from his claws, bites from his teeth, and overall determination. While some wolves where impressed by this display of strength, Anna, along with the rest of her and Runt's family felt very uneasy. Even King couldn't help but feel worried by his son-in-laws current feral state.
Back with Sam, he had managed to back Hench up to a cliff, a cliff that overlooked a rushing torrent, a clear sign that melting snow had caused the once mild river to swell beyond it's banks. At this point, a bloodied and scared Hench could feel his fear growing by the second, even more so when a growling Sam menacingly approached him, his teeth bared as he growled at his enemy. As he took another step back, Hench quickly balanced himself as he felt one of his rear feet slip over the edge of the cliff.
"Samuel," he quickly said as he weighed his options between the feral wolf and the raging water, "please, have mercy."
"Mercy?" Sam asked in a voice that was a combination of a laugh and a snarl.
"You said it yourself Hench, mercy is for the weak."
At that point, Hench's eyes widened in fear at the realization that Sam did intend to kill him. But, at the very moment that Sam intended to deliver the killing blow, he felt two paws grab his face, pulling his attention...to his only daughter, who, with tears in her eyes, looked pleadingly into her father's.
"Daddy," she choked out, "please. If you kill him, you are no better than he is."
As he listened to his daughter speak, Sam, his hackles beginning to lower, soon felt his mental state return to what it was, allowing him the opportunity to look around at the others, all nodding in agreement. Even King took a step forward, along with Terra as they stood beside Anna.
"This isn't you...Son," King whispered.
"Come back to us sweetheart," Terra added in, tears in her eyes as she leaned in to place a gentle kiss on her mate's lips.
And it was at that moment that the true Sam returned, his pupils shrinking back to their original size as his feral expression softened to the one associated with a loving Omega. After taking a few moments to fully recover from his feral state, Sam soon cast his gaze at Hench, who at this point had recovered from his fear, before turning back to the others.
"Let's go home," he said, before casting a sneer in Hench's direction, "this filth isn't worth it."
Now, while most wolves who had just stared death right in the eyes mere seconds earlier would turn tail and run, Hench, at being called filth by a lowly Omega, began growling, only to lunge a second later at Sam, unaware that river below had worn away the rock and mud at the base of the cliff. causing the section Hench was on to crumble. Letting out a yelp of surprise, Hench, deciding that he would at least take someone with him, had just enough time to grab onto the nearest wolf, which was a very unlucky Anna, who let out a startled scream as she and Hench disappeared over the edge.
"ANNA!" her parents, grandfather and Runt called, all of them running to the edge. As they did, each breathed a small sigh of relief as they saw that Anna had used her teeth to to grab hold of tree root sticking out from the cliff. Unfortunately, just beneath her, Hench had managed to brace himself on a bolder wedged in the cliff face, his growls barely heard over the roaring water as he attempted to scale the cliff to get to Anna.
Thinking fast, Sam began to carefully scale down the cliff, tail first, in order to get to his daughter, who luckily was only a few feet down.
"ANNA!" he called, "CLIMB OVER ME!"
With some difficulty, Anna was able to swing over to her father, clutching onto his back for a few seconds before she began to carefully climb over Sam until she was grabbed by the scruff of her neck by King, who pulled her to safety just as Sam was suddenly jerked down, a bolt of pain running up his right rear leg, courtesy of Hench sinking his teeth into it.
"I'M NOT GOING ALONE!" Hench screamed through his teeth and the leg, the owner of said leg growling at the demented Alpha. Bringing his free leg up, Samuel decided that he WOULD end this here and now. Shouting one final statement to Hench, Sam brought his foot down on Hench's face with each word.
"I...HAVE HAD...ENOUGH OF...YOU!"
And with one final kick, Hench found himself screaming as he fell into the raging river, spluttering and gasping for air until a strong wave smashed his head against an exposed rock, cracking his skull and knocking him unconscious, his body quickly becoming consumed by the river as the last remnants of King's All Alpha Pack, and Cain's army, drowned in the muddy water.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Sam managed to pull himself back up the cliff, quickly being enveloped in a tight embrace by his family and friends. Looking to the other wolves present, Sam gave a soft smile as he addressed them in a calm, tired manner.
"It's over."
And in an instant, a chorus of howls sounded through the air.