(A/N) Hey guys, sorry that this is going up later than it should be, just am still being held up by real life, work and college, but hey, we can deal with small delays, right? After all, isn't this just the best X-Ray and Vav fic out there? The correct answer is yes, yes it is. Anyways, left you guys on a bit of a cliff-hanger last time, and, funnily enough, this one will leave you on an even bigger cliff-hanger, but oh well. Another fantastic chapter by Jerem6401, and end our first arc in this fic. Arc two will be even bigger, badder and more epic in every way!
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, we're still looking for writers interested in writing for Carolina in our sequel to Phase One: Genesis, so if anyone out there is interested, just PM me and I'll give you the necessary details!
Enjoy!
Chapter Twelve – The Enderwolf Showdown
Ray Narvaez Jr / X-Ray
Written by Jerem6401
"But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still to be met." ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
X-Ray leapt from his window and dropped to the street below. He could see the Enderwolf running at full sprint, flashing in and out of visibility as it went under the streetlights. X-Ray hit a button on his gauntlet. A small beeping began, and progressively got faster. X-Ray kept his eyes locked on his target, as something began rolling down the street behind him. X-Ray leapt into the air, landing on a motorized scooter as it raced in autopilot down the road.
He slammed the throttle, pushing the scooter to its limits. The Enderwolf was way out in front, but the red misty trail he left behind him was giving away his position. X-Ray reached up and flipped a switch on the side of his glasses, white and red swirls appearing on his lenses, which immediately began to spin. Suddenly everything in his sight turned black, with distinctive white outlines, and the red mist of the Enderwolf brightly highlighted. X-Ray could now follow his path without any trouble.
"Slippery bastard!" X-Ray yelled. He watched the trail spin off the road and into a nearby alley. X-Ray ripped his scooter to the side and headed for the entrance. Citizens on the sidewalk gasped as he came barrelling towards them.
X-Ray lifted a small box to his mouth and began to speak, his voice amplifying out of a speaker on his bike. "Out of the way!" he yelled. "Scooter Patrol coming through!"
The citizens leapt onto the ground, dodging X-Ray as he tore through the alley. He followed the trail while dodging fallen dumpsters and barrels, avoiding the civilians as he sped by in hot pursuit. He looked up and saw his target, his eyes narrowing as he tried to process this new information. The Enderwolf was running at full sprint along the wall of a building, his claws digging into the brick as he went, keeping him off the ground.
X-Ray lifted the box to his mouth again. "Hey asshole!"
The Enderwolf turned to look at him. "Why don't you act like a big brave dog and not a cowardly lio…"
The Enderwolf grunted and suddenly vanished into a puff of red smoke. Before X-Ray could finish his sentence, the wolf appeared in front of him and took a swipe with his massive paw. He batted X-Ray in the chest, flipping him off his bike and launching him over a chain link fence. X-Ray crashed down into a puddle in an open basketball court. Ignoring the pain that raged throughout his entire body, he shook off the attack and pushed himself to his knees, groaning as he did so.
He then heard another splash behind him as the Enderwolf leapt over the fence and into the court with him. It might as well have been an arena. Turning to face his foe, X-Ray smiled and gave a lazy salute, privately wondering why the hell he had thought it was a good idea to chase this thing. The wolf growled angrily as it moved towards X-Ray, its teeth bared, eyes narrowed in an animalistic rage. X-Ray stood up and whipped his cape around to his back, heroically, as though the Enderwolf was just another hired thug or burglar. There he stood, hands on his hips, chest pushed out, smiling confidently into the beast's face.
"I beat you up once, wolf!" he yelled. "Don't make me do it again!"
The Enderwolf bared his teeth, before roaring and vanishing into his red mist. X-Ray raised his arms into a fighting stance, on guard, as the area fell silent. He was listening for anything… any trace of where the wolf had disappeared to. He heard cars in the distance, planes overhead, and then… a small scratch on the ground behind him.
He spun around just as the Enderwolf tackled him to the floor, snarling ravenously as it did so, its teeth snapping at his throat. X-Ray kicked his legs up, throwing the wolf off of him and rolling to his feet, panting heavily. The wolf disappeared before hitting the ground and then reappeared over X-Ray. He dropped down, slamming his paw into X-Ray's head, its claws leaving bloody furrows across the top of his skull, causing him to gasp as pain washed over him. The Enderwolf quickly disappeared again, showering Ray in the mist.
"Oh man!" he yelled, raising his hand to his head, which came away sticky with blood. "If you could stop doing that… that'd be great!"
The wolf appeared in front of Ray again, this time slashing it his chest, tearing his suit and knocking the hero onto his back, gasping and winded. The wolf stood over X-Ray, saliva dripping from his jaws as he bared his teeth, and X-Ray quickly glanced around for anything that could give him the edge over this monster, fear filling him as he came up with nothing.
"Hey you mong!" a voice shouted from far behind the creature. The Enderwolf looked up as another motorcycle came ripping over one of the buildings next to him, silhouetting it and its rider in the moon behind it. Vav leapt off his bike and fell towards the enemy. "Prepare for a buncing you'll never forget you little bitch hairy little git…"
As Vav was just about on the Enderwolf, he roared and slammed his fist into Vav's chest, knocking him down onto the concrete. The Enderwolf reached down and grabbed Vav's throat, lifting him into the air. He titled his head as he examined his prey. The wolf growled and leaned in… emitting a horrible, low tone from deep within.
"Puny man!" he snarled, spittle drenching Vav's face. X-Ray sat up and shook his head. The Enderwolf must have been getting stronger, but how? X-Ray lifted his hand to his glasses and started his tracking vision again. That's when he saw it. Purple particles floating in the air around them and being absorbed into the Enderwolf's frame. He traced the source of the particles and paused as he discovered it. Papers of some kind were stuck on the fence around them. Eight of them. The lists had strange markings all over them, and were constantly emitting these purple particles, floating against the wind…even though they're really was no wind to speak of. Not even a gentle breeze.
"That's it!" X-Ray yelled. "Vav! Hold on!"
X-Ray pressed another button on his glasses, which immediately turned a bright red, polarizing just in time for him to unleash his own assault. The Enderwolf turned in time to see a blast of energy fire from X-Ray's eyes and crash into his chest, sending it flying into the air, crashing against the chain-link fence behind it. Vav flew from the wolf's grip and dropped down into the puddle, groaning, just as X-Ray had himself only a while earlier.
"Oh! Sod it!" he yelled.
"Vav! The lists! They're giving the Enderwolf power. This must have been a trap. He wanted us to come here." The Enderwolf roared as he turned around to face the duo. X-Ray and Vav looked at one another and nodded, not even needing words to communicate the rest of their plan. X-Ray hummed slightly before stepped forward and sticking his finger into the air, singing loudly.
"X-RAY!"
"AND VAV!" Vav ran straight at the Enderwolf, seeing him bring his arms up in preparation to strike. Vav dropped to the floor and slid between the monster's legs, popping up behind the beast and snatched a list off of the fence, ripping it as he did. The Enderwolf gasped when he saw it, and cringed slightly. He growled and vanished once again, disappearing into the night.
X-Ray got to another list and ripped it off the wall. He heard the wolf yell in pain, the howl coming from directly behind him, causing him to spin around, his eyes already glowing as they prepared to unleash another blast. However, before he could, the wolf grabbed X-Ray's suit and slammed the hero into the fence, knocking the wind out of him.
The Enderwolf reared back and made to bite X-Ray directly on the neck, its teeth already bared, when Vav tore another list from its place. The wolf let go of X-Ray and gripped the sides of its head, yelling while it did. X-Ray used the opportunity to load up his eye-blasters again and fire at the wold. However, the wold was clearly a fast learning, dropping X-Ray to the ground just as the beam discharged. However, as he fell, X-Ray twisted his head, and the beam incinerated three more lists, tearing through both the paper and the fence.
The Enderwolf dropped to all fours and shook violently back and forth. It flickered in and out, trying to vanish, but just not having enough juice in the tank. Taking advantage of the creature's momentary weakness, Vav grabbed the last three lists and forcefully tore them in half. The wolf fell to its knees and roared into the sky, before collapsing onto the ground, whimpering in pain. The red mist around it faded away and the fur along its body started to grow shorter, as it began to reverse its transformation. The Enderwolf opened its red eyes, trying to get to its feet, only to see X-Ray and Vav standing together in front of it. They both loaded up a punch and slammed their fists into the wolf's chest, knocking the beast onto its back.
"Boom!" X-Ray screamed.
"Don't come faffing around Achievement City and think you can get away with it!" Vav added.
"Wait… Vav…" Vav looked to X-Ray, who was staring at the Enderwolf, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Are you seeing this, too?"
Vav looked back and stared in amazement as the Enderwolf started to shrink down and take on a more human form. Its snout dissolved into a face, its hair shrunk to bare skin, and its massive frame became that of an average man. X-Ray approached the man and raised one eyebrow as he saw his face. Vav joined him and folded his arms.
"Isn't that… isn't that Adam?" he asked. "The guy J-Roll was questioning? The survivor of the damn massacre?!" X-Ray nodded slowly and knelt down next to him, making sure he was still alive. "So he was lying to us after all, huh?"
X-Ray sighed and rested his hand on his knee. "Or maybe he just didn't know."
Vav grunted and put his hands on his hips. "Bollocks! If you're a giant wolf, you're gunna damn know about it!"
Vav was preparing further argument, when he heard something behind him. Something shifting on the rooftop. He heard a click, the sound of a bullet being cocked into position, his senses altered beyond those of normal humans by the serum that had transformed him. Spinning around, the world began to slow down as his adrenaline kicked in, almost as though he entered a world of slow motion, and he was already moving forward just as a thunderous bang! echoed throughout the court. Birds took off from the rooftops around them and the water on the ground rippled, but Vav's eyes were searching for the encroaching bullet, his hand already moving through the air when he saw it, a small metallic glint in the darkness. His hand reached out and closed around something, snatching it out of the air just as the world resumed its normal speed.
Looking down at the bullet in his hand, and glancing back up to the rooftop, estimating its trajectory, it was clear that the shooter had intended it for Adam's head. Vav looked up to see a bearded man grunt in frustration and then quickly turn to run, disappearing from the edge of the rooftop.
"Don't let him get away!" Vav yelled.
"Wait!" a voice cried. The two looked down to see Adam reached up for them, coughing out blood between deep breaths. "Please don't go! What's happening? Where am I?!"
X-Ray looked at Vav and then back up to the rooftop. "We won't leave," X-Ray stated calmly, reassuringly, and turned back to Adam.
Vav sighed and shook his head. He looked down at the bullet in his hand, smiling slightly as he mentally congratulated himself on the save. It was still hot, and he could feel that through his glove. He examined the bullet, noticing something was scratched ever so carefully onto its surface, just like the previous two had been, confirming that the man he had glimpsed was indeed the infamous Bullet-Beard.
"Here comes Round Two."