Inside Jacob's Mansion...
While Jacob was being shot in the woods, Allison and Lydia were still talking with the Argents. Suddenly, Lydia's eyes glowed white and she fell into a trance. Her teacup slipped from her fingers, shattering on the floor.
Allison looked at her worriedly, shaking her shoulder gently. "Lydia, what's wrong?"
But Lydia didn't respond, no matter how much Allison shook her.
Cogman, who had been playing a soft sonata on the piano, rushed over. "Lady Allison, please, do not shake her. She is likely having a vision—it is one of her abilities. But whatever she is seeing, it will not be good."
A moment later, Lydia gasped, the white light vanishing from her eyes. She clutched Allison's arm, her fingers like ice. "She... she's going to die!" She choked out, her voice trembling with panic.
"Who?" Allison asked urgently.
"Malia." Lydia gasped. "She is going to die."
Allison raised a brow in confusion. "Who is Malia?"
"The girl Jacob brought home this morning!"
"What? Can we save her?" Allison asked.
Lydia shook her head, her expression grim. "No, it is too late. She is in the woods, but..."
"But what?" Allison pressed.
"Jacob seems to be with her, and he feels... different."
"Different how?"
Lydia shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. "In my vision, he feels... terrifying. I've never felt anything like that from him before."
"Maybe he's enraged because the girl got hurt." Allison reasoned. "Lydia, you predict mortal danger, so she might still be alive! Let's tell Jacob before she gets hurt. He might be able to save her."
---
Back in the Woods...
Malia, who had seen Jacob get shot, thought he was dead. She didn't know why, but a profound rage overwhelmed her. A low, guttural growl erupted from her throat, and her eyes ignited with a fierce blue light. Forgetting all caution, she launched herself from the cave, a blur of fur and fury, charging directly at the nearest hunter.
Jacob, still lying in the mud, heard Lydia's voice echo inside his head. [Jay, save Malia! She is going to die!]
A hunter noticed the snarling coyote charging toward them and aimed his rifle. Before Jacob could react, the hunter fired without hesitation. Three bullets struck Malia in the chest. The impact hurled her backward; she hit the ground with a pained whimper, her chest a ruin of bloody fur.
Jacob's eyes went wide, and time seemed to stop. His world narrowed to the sight of Malia's still form.
Then a wave of pure, unrestrained dragon aura exploded from him—a physical shockwave of power, tinged with crackling electricity that arced through the rain. The very air groaned. Hunters were flung through the air like ragdolls, crashing into trees or skidding through the mud. The massive Barghest was thrown back with a startled yelp. Even Charles the wizard and his two other skeletal hounds, who had been observing from the rear, were sent stumbling before falling to the ground and rolling in the mud.
Just as suddenly, Jacob calmed, reining his aura back in. He ignored the dazed hunters and rushed to Malia's side. She was dying, blood leaking from her mouth. He quickly pulled a Senzu Bean from his pocket dimension.
"Swallow it. Quick." He urged, feeding it to her.
Malia, with her last ounce of strength, swallowed the bean. The effect was instantaneous. The bloody bullet holes in her chest closed and vanished. She stood up, fully healed, and looked at him with her glowing blue eyes, shocked that he was alive and that he had healed her so completely.
Jacob's own glowing golden eyes met hers. He pressed his forehead against her coyote head, his voice thick with relief. "I'm so glad you're alive. And I'm sorry. This is my fault. If I hadn't been so cocky, if I hadn't let myself get shot and been lost in my thoughts, you would never have been hurt."
He pulled back and flicked her nose gently. "Don't do that again. When I tell you to hide, you stay hidden. I'm really strong, and I am really, really hard to kill." His expression turned deadly serious. "Now, go back to that cave and watch how I tear these idiots apart for hurting you."
Malia gave a sharp nod before turning and darting back to the safety of the cave, her blue eyes now fixed on the scene about to unfold.
Jacob heard Lydia's voice again in his head, laced with worry. [Jay, did you save her?]
[Yes.] he replied telepathically, his gaze scanning the recovering hunters. [She was shot, but I healed her. By the way, how do you know her name?]
[I don't know.] Lydia responded. [I just saw her in a vision and knew her name. I saw you too, and you were so scary. What's going on over there?]
Jacob connected telepathically to both Lydia and Allison. [Some idiots attacked me. There are twenty hunters, plus another man—he supernatural for sure, but I don't know what he is. Anyway, talk to you girls later. Now, I need to kill some people.]
[We're coming to help!] Allison's voice cut in, sharp and determined.
[There's no need. I can handle them alone.] Jacob insisted.
[We're coming anyway.] Allison replied.
[Then bring Cogman with you.] Jacob instructed. [These guys have some weird dogs that can absorb energy. I've counted three here, and I don't know if they have more. So bring Cogman.]
[Alright. And be careful.] Allison replied.
Jacob turned his attention back to the hunters. The first to recover and attack was the monstrous Barghest he had been toying with earlier.
Jacob stopped playing around. He shifted, not fully, but his body beneath his clothes became covered in black dragon scales, his hands transforming into powerful, scaled claws.
He didn't wait for the beast to charge. He opened his mouth, and the air crackled as a sphere of raw, blue-white lightning gathered before him. With a roar, he released a devastating lightning breath straight at the creature.
The Barghest tried to absorb the attack, opening its maw wide. But the sheer power was too much. The beam of electricity tore through the dog's head and body, turning its massive skull to ash. The headless, massive body swayed for a moment before crashing to the ground, instantly shrinking back into a pile of mundane, scorched bones.
The hunters, who had been blown away earlier, were now getting to their feet, groaning in pain. Under the orders of their leader, Marcus, they quickly fell into a defensive formation.
One of them, Jack, aimed a Barrett M82 sniper rifle at Jacob. "Eat this, you freak!" He screamed, pulling the trigger.
Jacob didn't dodge this time either. He was confident the bullet wouldn't penetrate his hardened dragon scales. He stood his ground, allowing the bullet to strike him square in the chest. It tore through his hoodie and slammed into the dragon scales beneath with a sound like a hammer striking an anvil. The round didn't penetrate; it shattered into a shower of harmless, metallic sparks, failing to even leave a scratch on his dragon scales.
All the hunters watched in stunned silence, their eyes wide.
"Impossible!" Jack whispered, his face pale. "That was a .50 BMG round!"
A woman looked at Marcus, her voice trembling. "Boss, what have we provoked? I don't know how he defended himself from that round, but even earlier when it went through his chest, it didn't seem to cause any lasting damage. And let's not forget the round was laced with Kanima venom, but it had no effect on him at all! And He sent us flying with just a shockwave when the coyote was shot."
Another hunter added, his voice tight with fear. "And Boss, the kid can use electricity! He just vaporized that monstrous dog with his breath! Imagine if he attacks us directly!"
"ENOUGH!" Marcus bellowed, though a flicker of doubt was in his eyes. "He's still one man! And from what we saw, he can be hurt by bullets. I don't know how he defended himself this time, but I don't think he can do it indefinitely. So let's light him up!"
The hunters fanned out, taking positions and raising their rifles, fingers tightening on triggers. But Jacob just smirked.
Electricity erupted, enveloping his entire body in a crackling blue aura. His golden eyes flared with a fierce blue light. A katana materialized in his right hand from his pocket dimension—a perfect replica of Shusui from One Piece. He unsheathed it with a sharp shing, tossing the scabbard back into the void. In his left hand, the Desert Eagle he'd taken from Chris appeared.
Before a single hunter could squeeze a trigger, Jacob vanished. He became a living bolt of lightning, a blur of blue energy moving faster than the human eye could track.
What followed was not a battle; it was a slaughterhouse ballet, choreographed to the soundtrack of screaming men and thunder.
ZAP! He reappeared between two hunters. Shusui, coated in sizzling electricity, swept horizontally. Two heads, wearing identical looks of confusion, tumbled from their shoulders before their bodies crumpled.
"Where did he go?!" A hunter screamed, spinning wildly and desperately spraying bullets into the trees.
"Right here." Jacob whispered from behind him. The Desert Eagle pressed against the man's temple. BOOM! The hunter's head exploded like an overripe melon, painting the mud red.
Another hunter unleashed a full-auto burst. Jacob was already gone, the bullets shredding the tree where he'd stood. He dropped from the branches above, driving Shusui down in a vertical slash that split the shooter clean in half from skull to groin.
A female hunter dropped her rifle, hands raised. "Please! Don't! I have a family! Plea..." Her plea was interrupted by the thunderous BOOM of the Desert Eagle, which turned her head into a fine pink mist. "Sorry, sweetheart." Jacob's voice echoed from everywhere at once. "I'm a feminist, I believe in gender equality and all that shit. So you're definitely not getting the 'don't kill a woman discount' from me."
Jacob didn't discriminate. Man, woman—they were all hostiles who had tried to kill him and had succeeded in nearly killing Malia.
Bullets flew wildly, shredding bark and hitting the hunters' own comrades.
"Stop shooting me, you idiot!" One man caught his teammate by the collar and screamed at him, right before a lightning-coated blade speared through both their chests, pinning them together like a morbid shish kebab. "Now kiss and make up." Jacob whispered as he zipped past.
He moved through them like a force of nature, a blue-white blur of impossible speed. The Desert Eagle roared, blowing holes in chests and heads. Shusui sang, severing heads, limbs and torsos with electric precision. The clearing became a charnel house, the rain doing little to wash away the blood and viscera that painted the ground.
In under thirty seconds, the screaming stopped. The gunfire ceased. The clearing was painted red. Nineteen hunters lay in grotesque, dismembered pieces. The only one left breathing was Marcus, the bald leader, his arms and legs bent at sickening, unnatural angles. He lay moaning in the mud amidst the carnage of his team.
Jacob stood over him, the lightning aura fading from his body, though his eyes still glowed with cold fury. "Now." He said, reaching for Marcus's head. "Let's see what you know."
But just then, Jacob felt a sudden, intense wave of cold. He grabbed Marcus by the collar and vanished in a flash, reappearing ten feet away. The spot where he'd just been standing was instantly encased in a solid block of glittering ice.
Jacob dropped the whimpering hunter and turned his gaze to a man stepping out from behind a tree. It was the wizard, Charles.
Jacob's smirk returned, wider and more feral than before. "You seem impatient to die, old bastard. Let me send you on your way, then."
'Damn it!' Charles cursed inwardly, his face a mask of strained calm. 'The kid is too fast and too strong. I thought I could use those idiots to my advantage, but he slaughtered them before I could even react.' He let out a slow, steadying breath, his mind racing. 'This is going to be a tough fight. If I'm not careful, I might lose my life here.'
To be continued... 😊