Hello, hello, hello, what's happenin' readers?

Before I start, I've edited and re-uploaded chapter 2 with mistakes corrected, etc. Just a side-note.

This is the conclusion to last chapter's cliffhanger. Please enjoy!

Chapter 75: Unequalled

"Cedric!" I gasped. "Why on earth would you work with vampires? Have you lost your mind? Explain yourself!"

"I'm not working with them because I like them or anything," he replied coldly. "I'm doing this out of spite. It's my way of opposing Sir Amik Varze and his way of running things; a renegade movement, you could say. Let me explain.

"You see, I believe Sir Amik Varze is a pompous bigot, to be frank. He's always been one. He's always making snide comments about me behind my back. He's in complete control, and he knows it. Trust me; I've been working with him for many years. I'm very familiar with him. I hate the way he runs things. He allows anybody into Falador freely, and it's nearly destroyed the city several times. The black knights have very talented spies, and Sir Amik Varze lets them in freely."

"Since when did you start hating our leader with such a passion?" I retorted angrily. Cedric sighed.

"Since you stepped in, of course," he countered. "I never trusted you the moment you stepped in. I knew you were bad news, and I didn't understand why Sir Amik Varze trusted you so much, but then again I realised he's always been in a world of his own.

You're a bad luck charm, Mainiac97. Wherever you go, death, destruction and misfortune follow. Our innocent city was so perfect before. We had a few problems with the black knights and the goblins then and again, but apart from that our lives were going very well. Then you stepped in and everything changed.

"Creatures became more aggressive. We noticed possessed animals there and again, but the moment you stepped in the rate of possessed animals that grew angry almost tripled. Crime rose, death rose, and everything negative rose. Sir Amik Varze was too blind to see that you were the cause of it.

"I was really stressed over it. I really wanted to dispose of you, but I was afraid of being discovered and losing my job. I wanted to show Sir Amik Varze the error of his ways, but I was unsure of how to do it. Then I met these vampires.

"They changed everything. They wanted blood and a home. I met them crawling through the nearby forest on a rainy night. They tried to kill me, but I succeeded in talking to them. I wanted to show Sir Amik Varze a thing or two, getting rid of you on the process. So we made a deal. I gave them the map of the entire pipe system so they could make their way around. I told them who to kill, and they murdered with glee. They get their blood, I get my say. We both win!"

"How does murdering a city prove a point?" I argued.

"You fool," Cedric sneered. "If Sir Amik Varze notices his people disappearing before his very eyes, he may decide to change the way he runs things."

I opened my mouth to argue, but it hit me. He was right. I WAS a bad luck charm. Maybe his way of opposing Sir Amik Varze was a little dark, a little desperate, but I could see the logic behind it. I tried to think of arguments. I really didn't want to agree with anyone who worked with vampires, but I felt myself feeling sympathy for Cedric.

"Look, maybe we can sort something out," I said weakly. "You don't have to resort to murder to prove a point to Sir Amik. I could talk with him if you really want me to. Don't trust those vampires. I've met them before, and I know them well enough to say that there's a possibility you could be backstabbed." Mort laughed, and a ripple of chuckles spread through the crowd of vampires.

"No," Cedric replied firmly. "I know that if I make an agreement with you, some other misfortune will befall us all. Besides, what reason do these vampires have to go against me? I'm giving them free blood."

"Don't underestimate them," I informed him. "They're very clever, and they've probably memorized the underground map already. They could easily go against you and continue with their murdering spree."

"Enough!" Mort spat. "How dare you!"

"Calm down, Mort," another vampire giggled. "At least we can feast tonight." He nodded. They all started walking toward us slowly. I heard Cedric cackle. I turned to face him, and I saw a manic grin on his face.

"Enjoy," he whispered, backing off. "Oh, by the way, they've built up immunity to fire. Some of these pipes carry great amounts of hot water, which is heated because of a furnace installed in the pipe system. They've been subjected to so much heat they've grown immune to it. Sunlight still hurts them, but not as much as before. Just thought I'd let you know before you try it." I turned back to the vampires. The bloodthirsty looks on their faces wasn't a very good omen. I sent a fire strike towards them, only to find out that Cedric was right. We braced ourselves for the fight of a lifetime.

They all bounded forward. I yelped as a vampire smashed into my chest, sending me flying backwards. I bit my lip in pain as my head hit the railings of the balcony. I stood up, and unsheathed Silverlight. The vampire sent his fist flying towards me. I used Silverlight to block the attack. He smashed his elbow into my face. Blood trickled from my nose. I groaned in pain, and hit the vampire repeatedly with Silverlight. He bounced back, spitting and hissing.

He grabbed my neck, and smashed me into the floor. I stood up, feeling my ribs to make sure none of them were broken. He picked me up again, and smashed me into the floor. Just as he lounged towards me again to pick me up, I pointed Silverlight upwards, and he pushed himself into the sword. He looked at the gaping hole in his chest. He roared, and started running towards me, but a white knight ran forward and attacked him. He was distracted, and I got the opportunity to back off.

I felt like I'd just been thrown into an egg beater. I pulled my shirt up, and my chest was covered with bruises. I'd only fought one vampire, and I already felt battered. I really didn't see why we had to resort to violence over this matter. This could easily be settled over a cup of tea. Cedric, instead of running off and making a deal with vampires, could have simply had a conversation with Sir Amik Varze, expressing his feelings.

The battle continued for a while. I was suffering very greatly, losing hit points like a tree losing leaves in the autumn. So far, four white knights were dead, and only one vampire had been slain. It had been a lucky shot; sword through the heart by Capablanca.

I walked out of the battle, covered with cuts and bruises. I had a black eye, and a hunk of flesh had been ripped out my arm earlier. I felt like kneeling down and sobbing with mental and physical torture, but I was forced to keep myself together. I looked up, and I was faced with Cedric. He smirked at me evilly.

"We'll settle this like men," he muttered. He unsheathed his sword. He swung his sword violently towards me. I blocked it with Silverlight hastily. I kicked Cedric in the stomach and he was pushed back several paces. Cedric bumped into something. He looked up, and saw the towering figure of Mort.

Mort and Aaron were locked in a ferocious duel. Aaron was no longer the nervous, twitchy person he'd become recently. He was a lion in battle, fighting with a confident look in his eyes.

Cedric stepped out of Mort's way and continued fighting me. Our swords clashed ferociously as we both fought for the victory we both desired. My muscles were beginning to ache. I managed to slip past his defences, and I struck him in the face. He screeched with pain as his cheek started bleeding.

"You'll pay for that!" he shouted. He whacked my sword with such force I was forced back a few feet. The struggle continued. I stared him in the eyes, and all I could see was pure hatred. "You've screwed my life up enough already; it's time for you to meet your demise!" He jabbed me aggressively in the stomach. I lost my temper, and kicked him so hard in the chest he was sent flying backwards into Mort.

"Get out of the way!" Mort snarled. "You're going to get yourself killed!" He pushed Cedric back. He grabbed me by the foot. I screeched in fear. Aaron daren't attack Mort while he was holding me. Mort chortled, and flung me into the roof. I was smashed into the roof with the force of a cannonball. I fell to the floor in a heap. The ceiling cracked above me where I hit it, and a small section of it collapsed. The falling debris fell into the reservoir of putrid brown water below. The full moon must be out, I though to myself silently, because the collapsed part of the roof showed a small ray of moonlight. I didn't see a problem with it, but obviously, Aaron did.

Aaron's breath quickened as the ray of moonlight shone on him. "No," he gasped. "I forgot. It's the full moon tonight!" He body started shuddering uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry. You have to run, NOW. Never mind the vampires; if you stay any longer you'll be as good as dead." I could see tears rolling down his cheek. "JUST GO!"

"What's wrong, Aaron?" I asked nervously. Before he could say anything, he roared, and fell down on his knees.

"It's too late," he whispered. "You should have gone while you had the chance." All of a sudden, the shuddering stopped. There was silence for almost a minute while Aaron knelt there, breathing deeply. Then it began.

He started growing. He grew so big his clothes ripped and fell around his feet, a pile of rags. Filthy brown fur burst from his body like some sort of alien creature that had been living inside of him. His teeth seemed to double in size as they transformed into fangs. His nails also doubled in size and transformed into claws. A massive brown tail burst from his behind. His arms grew until they looked like two massive tree trunks. With a cracking sound, he suddenly burst upwards. The result was a…

"Werewolf," Mort murmured. Aaron had disappeared. Instead, a ten-foot, drooling, spitting, angry werewolf stood there.

My eyes filled with unshed tears as I realised what Aaron had been hiding. He was a werewolf. That explained everything. It explained why he'd been disappearing, it explained why he'd been acting so edgy, and it even explained why he'd been refusing to talk to us about it. If word got out that he was a werewolf, he'd be hunted down and killed. He'd be blamed for the murders, that much was definite.

"Damn it," Mort grunted. "This changes a lot of things. We have to get out of here!" Before he could do anything else, Aaron bounded towards him, snarling. Mort was quick, but he wasn't quick enough. What followed wasn't pretty. Mort was ripped apart, literally. Mort screamed his last scream as Aaron ripped his throat out. I retched, and I was forced to look away. The smell was overwhelming.

The remaining vampires (there were about seven of them) screamed, and ran. One of them stopped to grab what remained of Mort before following the other vampires. Aaron must have slaughtered at least two of them as the tried to flee from him. Cedric tried to run after them.

"No! Wait for me!" he screamed. "We had a deal, you filthy, bloodsucking monsters!" He was blocked off by a furious werewolf. He screamed again, and ran in the opposite direction. He was met with the railings. He spun around again, only to be faced with a snarling Aaron. He gulped. He was cornered. Aaron picked him up by the throat, growling.

I watched Cedric struggle desperately from the vice-like grip of Aaron's new werewolf form. I was very eager to see Cedric get his comeuppance, but at the same time I couldn't let him die. Maybe he was an obnoxious git. Maybe he did have the nerve to work with vampires. Maybe he was messed up in the head. But that didn't give me any excuse to let him die. I couldn't do to him what I did to Scum the dwarf. I ran forward with Silverlight, and jabbed Aaron in the stomach with it.

Aaron howled in surprise and pain, and Cedric was flung into the sky. With a final bawl of fear, Cedric fell into the reservoir, and I saw no more of him. I could hear splashes, screams and gasps, but then I heard no more. I looked down into the reservoir. I saw nothing. I felt an empty numbness inside my head. I was trying to save Cedric, and I ended up killing him.

I was distracted from my mourning by a bellow behind me. I swung around, and I saw Aaron towering above me. He swung his paw at me, and I ducked.

"We need to get out of here, NOW!" I yelled to the others as a paw sent me flying into the air a few feet. I stood up, and ran as fast as I could towards the exit pipe. The other followed me, panting. We were closely pursued by Aaron, who was roaring so loudly the area around us was vibrating.

We sped down the pipe, fuelled by adrenaline. We knew that if we stopped, even for a second, we were doomed. Aaron, in his wolf form, was uncontrollable and angry. He wasn't in his right mind.

We arrived at the end of the pipe. I was just beginning to scramble up the ladder, when a terrifying thought occurred to me. If we went to the surface, Aaron would follow. He'd been hiding from us whenever he transformed for a reason. If he went into Falador like this, he'd kill countless people.

"We need to somehow knock out Aaron so he won't hurt anyone on the surface!" I yelled. I tried to think of ideas as quickly as I could, because Aaron was approaching us as high speed. It was too late. Aaron had caught up with us. He grabbed a white knight by the throat, and ripped him apart. The screams of pain filled the entire pipe. I was sobbing my eyes out. So much death had been caused. When would the suffering end?

While Aaron was distracted by the flesh of the white knight, I noticed the ceiling above him was cracked.

"Everyone, we need the ceiling above Aaron to collapse on him," I whispered. "On the count of three, use a water spell on it." I counted to three, and a flurry of water strikes, bolts filled the surrounding space. They all hit the cracked ceiling, and the ceiling gave way under the pressure. The debris hit Aaron, and Aaron was knocked unconscious,

I went up to the unconscious werewolf cautiously. My heart welled up with sadness as I saw what one of my best friends had become. Why had he hidden this from us?

An hour later, I found myself in Sir Amik Varze's office with Slinky, Jamie, Osrie1 and Capablanca. We'd carried Aaron's unconscious body to the castle. It wasn't an easy task; Aaron was very heavy. Aaron was currently in a cell in the castle dungeons, being guarded by two white knights. We'd spent the last twenty minutes telling Sir Amik Varze what had happened.

"You've been through a lot tonight," he sighed. "I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for going on this expedition. The murders have been solved. Maybe there are still some vampires out there, but they've been scared away by Aaron's surprise transformation and the death of their leader. They won't be returning for a while. Maybe I'm partially responsible for this for running the city with a lax attitude and angering Cedric. I thought maybe he was a little obnoxious, a little unpleasant, but I never suspected him to be capable of arranging murder."

"But sir, I still don't understand the werewolf cycle," I said. "Could you possibly explain it to me?"

"Well," Sir Amik Varze said thoughtfully. "It is a rather curious process. It depends entirely on the person, to be honest. A man can only become a werewolf through ancestry (if the person's parents are werewolves, the child will be one too). A person can be bitten by a werewolf and there's a 40% that person will become one.

"A werewolf will always change if it goes into contact with moonlight, full stop. There aren't any spells or potions that can combat this yet. The power of the full moon is unequalled. But a werewolf can change at other times. There are certain werewolves that can control when they change completely, but there are others that could change at any second. There are also those in between, who can control when they change, but sometimes change against their will.

"There is also the question of them keeping their will. Some werewolves can't control when they change, but when they do change they will keep their minds and wills. There are others that can control when they change, but if they change they'll lose control of their bodies."

"What type of werewolf is Aaron?" I asked curiously.

"Well, I think he has a small amount of control, but the most part he can't control himself," Sir Amik Varze replied. "Why would he need to hide if he can control his transformations?"

At that moment, a white knight ran in frantically.

"Sir," he gasped. "Aaron's escaped!" Sir Amik Varze stood up, a serious expression on his face. "We were guarding him. About five minutes ago he stirred and started hammering against the bars, howling and roaring. We heard a scratching sound for three or so minutes, and suddenly the bars collapsed. He knocked my comrade out, and fled the castle by jumping out a window into the moat, and swimming across."

The white knight led us to his cell in the dungeons, panting. He led us down some spiral steps, into a dirty concrete room. Half of the room had been separated by metal bars, which were collapsed. The other white knight had regained consciousness, and was investigating the scene.

"Look!" he called to us. "He's carved something into the wall!" We ran over to investigate. Sure enough, a message had been carved into the wall. It read:

To all of my friends who read this,

I've woken up now to find out I've regained my will, but I'm still in wolf form. I can't remember what I did tonight as a wolf, but I must have done something serious to wake up in a dungeon cell. I'd like to start off by apologising to the guard I am now going to knock out. I'd also like to apologise to Sir Amik Varze for vandalising his cells with messy messages; writing using your fingernails in wolf form is more difficult than it seems. To my friends who accompanied me into the dungeons, I'm sorry for the surprise transformation. I feel like I owe you all an explanation.

As you may have figured out already, I am a werewolf. I've been a werewolf from birth. My parents were werewolves; all of my siblings are werewolves too. I learnt how to control my transformations from a young age. I was raised in Catherby with many other werewolves. I have a clan of werewolves in Catherby that consists of family and friends. I still write to them, and I can communicate with them while I'm a werewolf with howls.

I liked exploring when I was younger, and I joined an exploration troop which was my job until recently. That's how I met you. I was exploring the Stronghold of Security with some other explorers and I was knocked out on the bottom floor. You just happened to find me. That's how I joined you.

Recently, for some strange reason, I lost my control over my werewolf form so I couldn't control when I transformed. That's why I started hiding and disappearing. I was trying to keep everyone I knew safe. Every time I felt a transformation coming on, I'd hide. I lost my will, and I didn't remember what I did during my time as a werewolf. For all I knew, I was the mystery murderer. It was probably a bad idea for me to come down with you. I forgot that it was the full moon tonight.

I'm very sorry, but I can't risk any more lives. I'm going back to Catherby with my clan. I'm going to re-train vigorously so I can control myself. If you try following us, we're going to keep running and hiding. We may meet again sometime in the future, when I finish my training. I'm sorry, but it's too dangerous to have me tagging around with you. Travelling with you has been amazing, and I wouldn't have traded the experience for the world.

Goodbye.

A tear came to my eye once I finished reading. Aaron was gone, just like that. He'd been such an amazing friend, and I hoped we'd meet him again in the future. I understood why he had to go. I wouldn't follow him; that wouldn't be fair.

So many terrible things had happened tonight. Many innocent lives had been lost. I felt Cedric was very abhorrent, but he didn't deserve to die the way he did. All he was trying to do was file a complaint and prove a point, but he was doing it all wrong. Teaming up with vampires was as desperate as you could get.

I was glad Mort was dead, but I knew we wouldn't see that last of the vampires. There was no chance they were going to continue murdering in Falador with the fear of Aaron still present (especially with limited numbers) but I knew they weren't completely gone. We'd gotten rid of them for the most part, but at a price.

I noticed that our gang seemed to be disappearing, bit by bit, one by one. Capablanca was more or less gone. He was still here, but there was no way he was going to continue travelling with us with his job. Mark had gone back to his home village to fight off a bandit invasion. Aaron had gone back to his clan to re-train. Who was going to be next?

Well, I hope you liked that. Since this chapter answers many questions and solves many mysteries, I worked especially hard on it.

Now readers, what's your opinion? Do you see the logic behind Cedric's decision? How do you feel about his death? Do you think it was a good idea for Aaron to return to his clan? Were you surprised by Aaron's secrets? Tell me what you think in a review! It's very interesting to see a mixed bag of reactions and opinions.

Next time: "You've encountered us seperately, now it's time for you to feel our true power when we're together!"

Hasta la próxima, adiós!