One Howling Adventure! 4 (Patreon)

Chapter 4: Of Cats and Dogs

“YOU SPENT HOW MUCH ON WHALE BONE?!”

I knew Nami was going to be mad, but that didn’t mean I’d prepared for how mad she was. I could only hope that I looked enough like a puppy in my feral form to avoid being turned into a rug.

“Don’t try those puppy eyes with me! Now what do you have to say for yourself?!”

My dilemma was made worse by the fact that for some insane reason Nami wasn’t wearing a bra, and she was very emotive with her arms. The end result was a rather vivid demonstration of what back home would be called jiggle physics. I did my best to not let my gaze be distracted and mumbled out, so Katara wouldn’t hear from where she was watching off to the side, “I wanted to make an engagement band.”

The next sound out of my mouth was a canine yelp as Nami grabbed my ear and dragged me away. She led me a short way into the woods before letting go and demanding, “You repeat that, because it sounded like you said you were wanting to make an engagement band.”

Shifting into hybrid form so I had a hand to rub my aching ear, I said, “I did. I know I’m going to fuck up a lot so I wanted to have plenty of extra of material to practice.”

“And just how do you plan to pay me back?”

“I figured it would come out of my share of the crew’s wages.”

“You’re not part of the crew though,” Nami pointed out, confused rather than mad now.

I sighed, “Being perfectly honest? I don’t have anywhere else to go. Home’s not gone, but… let’s just say that I don’t have the option of going back. Even if I could, the fact that I’m... “ I motioned to my hybrid form in lieu of saying anything more.

Nami’s gaze softened, and she hesitantly reached out before patting my bicep (the highest part of me she could reach), “I’m sorry.”

“Besides, do you really think Luffy would pass up the chance to have a ‘mystery wolf’ as a crewmate?”

Nami opened her mouth before pausing. Finally she chuckled and said, “I don’t know if it’s funny or sad that Luffy’s so predictable you have her pegged after a week.”

“It’s Luffy? Is there really anything else to say?” I count the snort from the orange haired navigator to be a win for me.

“By the way,” Nami began, hands grabbing her elbows as she pushed her breasts together with her upper arms, “I noticed you looking. If you’d like, I could arrange a private viewing.”

“As wonderful as that would be,” I said with a flat look and dry voice, “I am neither rich enough to afford that, nor am I willing to cheat on Katara.”

“Good answer,” Nami said with surprising seriousness.

Oh sure, I didn’t think Nami’d be okay with me being willing to cheat on Katara, but there was something to her voice that made it seem like there was more to it than that. What, I had no idea, but it seemed… personal? If it mattered, I’d find out later.

“Shall we go back and show everyone that a dog-fur coat or rug isn’t in the crew’s future? What kind of dog are you, anyway?” Nami asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“To be honest, I’m not sure. I’m bigger than any dog I’ve ever seen, nor do I recognize the coat patterns and colors. But, to be fair, I haven’t exactly been able to do much in the way of an in depth library dive since I ate it,” I pointed out as we left the woods.

“Fair enough, well we’re bound to come across an island that has a library sooner or later.”

By the time we got back to the rest of the group, there were two people standing bemused and four people sleeping. Only three of the sleeping people were there when Nami dragged me away.

“Do I want to know?” I asked Katara.

“Hypnotist, made the kids fall asleep to prove his abilities were real and made himself fall asleep at the same time,” she explained with a poorly restrained giggle.

Why did a hypno… oh. Right, wasn’t the butler a retired pirate? Fuck, it’s been so long I can barely remember anything this early on. Well, I don’t want to shake things up this early, and everything turns out okay, so I can probably hold off saying anything.

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An hour later, the whole crew was with Usopp, having heard about the meeting of the hypnotist and the butler. Usopp was discussing various traps and tricks but despite my earlier decision to not say anything, I couldn’t resist. Besides, it would probably get me at least somewhat out of the hole I was in with Nami.

“Are you positive they’re going to come up this bank? What about where we came ashore?” I asked.

“They met here, so this has to be where they’re landing… right?” Usopp suddenly seemed unsure of himself.

“What if Logan keeps an eye on the other beach? If they land there, he can let us know with a howl and we can race over there. If they land here, well, the rest of you will probably be more than enough, plus you have your traps,” Katara suggested.

I opened my mouth to argue, but paused. I’d need a good test of how far I had to go, and Usopp had managed to hold them off in the manga. Eh, I’d be fine. Everyone else seemed to agree, so while Usopp put up most of the crew at his place, Katara and I went to the other beach. I shifted into feral form and laid down in the trees overlooking our boats, and was promptly used as both a bed and a fuzzy blanket.

I woke before the sun, and gently nudged the sleeping Katara awake. I had no desire for her to be anywhere near the action if I could help it. Not with her being so close to giving birth. Thankfully, she agreed with me, much as she wanted to watch me fight. It was much too early to have that kind of argument.

I laid back down, making sure I couldn’t be seen by the oncoming pirates. I then got to the most boring part of this morning: I waited. Slowly, the horizon turned burnt orange, then pink, and I could see a ship making its way to the beach. Now, how did I want to do this? I could howl now, but that would mean they’d get here too early. I’d wait for them to bring out the longboats, just enough for them to be committed to the attack.

Sure enough, a small fleet of longboats were coming ashore. As the first bit into the sand and their passengers hopped out, I stood to my paws and let out a long, threatening howl. The way the pirates jumped told me it had the hoped for side benefit.

Grinning, I leapt down from the top of the cliff, landing on top of one of the pirates. A paw lashed out, bowling over two more before I reached out and bit the shoulder of a fourth which I sent flying into the water with a toss of my head.

“What is that?!”

“It looks like a giant dog!”

“Stop standing there and kill it already!”

“Eyes,” I said, making the pirates pause, some of them looking longingly at the boats, “lungs, pancreas. So many snacks, so little time.”

“The fuck? The dog talked!”

“Forget that, did you hear what it said? It’s going to eat us! I’m outta-here!”

“NOW HOLD ON!” a voice from the back shouted. “You know what the Captain’ll do to us if we don’t follow his plan. Look into my ring…”

Much as I wanted to charge through and stop him from completing his hypnosis act, he was still on a boat and I ate a devil fruit. Although…

“One, two, Ja-AUGH!”

Unconscious pirates make for surprisingly aerodynamic projectiles. When the remaining pirates all turned around to see me in hybrid form, I could tell that more than a few of them were going to need a change of pants. Badly.

“You want me out of the way? Come and get me Ringo, you two bit circus hack,” I taunted, cracking my knuckles as the still conscious pirates all started to run.

“… what did you just call me?” he asked, his voice low and cold.

“Are you deaf too? Man, you are just one disappointment after another.”

He didn’t respond, simply taking his hat off his head, shoving it into the chest of another pirate, and rolling his neck with several loud cracks. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a second chakram on a string. Immediately the rest of the pirates ran, getting as far away from him as they could.

“Time to put a devil fruit mutt down,” he snarled, before rushing forwards, gleaming blades lashing out.

I soon realized that I just might have underestimated him. Pretty much all of my combat experience was against people who were unarmed or Katara. None of my training had prepared me for dealing with what a kung fu aficionado would call ‘rope weapons’. The first time I grabbed the rope/string/thing, the blade whipped around my hand and bit into the back of my hand.

Backing up, I considered my options. The unpredictable nature of his chakrams meant that I couldn’t just charge in, not without risking serious damage. Unfortunately, he followed after me, swinging his blades in a constant spinning barrage aimed at my throat and the major blood vessels in my legs.

It was only when I felt water wash up over my paws and felt a sudden lethargy that I realized: I’d been treating this like a ring fight. Despite the myriad of cuts and slashes I was bleeding from, I didn’t pay attention to my surroundings, and thus had let this clown maneuver me into the water.

“Not so smart are you? Once you’re out of the way, we’ll go to the village and ki…” I interrupted his monolog, by leaping at him and shifting to my feral form.

His chakrams flew, metal glinting as they sailed for my neck. Fur parted, but the mane I had did its job, and my thick, bony skull collided with soft flesh. A soprano squeal of pain was accompanied by a host of sympathetic ‘oohh's and as I shifted back to hybrid form, tossing my head as I did so. Jango went flying, his back colliding with the cliff face. In an instant, I was on him, and a red haze clouded my vision, a snarling howl echoing in the depths of my soul.

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I hooked a paw behind his ankle before driving the heel of my palm into his knee.

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A grip on his shoulder and twist popped it out of the socket.

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An elbow strike to his nose broke it.

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A flurry of fists broke ribs and left his face resembling ground burger.

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Something was wrapped around my arm, the cold biting through my fur. A voice echoed in my ears…

L̗̫̐̔́̕ǫ̷͖̗̓ͪg̡̯̭̑̓͢a̴̲̺ͤ͆̀n̤̪̎ͫ̀͢!ͪ̃҉͉̮͢ ̡̪̖ͮ͐͟T̸͉̞̽ͮ͜h̷ͫ̒҉̖̜a̩̣ͧ͑̀̕ẗ̵̩̄͝ͅ'̸̾̚͏̹͚s̨̮̞̆͛͘ ̴̷̥͖ͫ̿e̢̪̱͒́̕n̮̲ͧ̏͜͞ö͇̯̈́̀͠u̶͓̙ͣ́̚g̛ͫ̄҉͚͓ḩ̇̓҉̰̠,̶̞̘̊̈̕ ̧̫̫̄̀͟ȳ̵̛͈̺̈́ơ̶̗̯̾̒u͓̰͗̉́͡'̛̑͒҉̣͖v̡̭̤ͬ̒͟ȇ̽͏͏͍͓ ̴̵͚̩̿̃w̢̨̤̯ͦ̇o̿̉҉҉̳̘n̠̼̓̾́̕!̸͉̠͒̔͝

Mate’s scent…

I shook the haze from my head, focusing and pulling myself out of that mindless rage. A glance around showed my arm was being held by a mass of ice, and Jango was… no, I could hear his breath, but it was bubbly. Seeing I was myself again, Katara turned the ice back into water and stepped in front of me.

“What in the name of all that is holy are you?” one of the pirates asked, his voice filled with fear.

Turning around, and leveling a glare at the shaking pirates, I growled out, “I am Fenrir.”

A quick inspection showed that the rest of the crew had also shown up (Luffy and Zoro were both on guard, from the sounds of it Nami was on the Black Cat’s ship, and Usopp was hiding behind a rock), just in time for a voice to come from the top of the hill, “What a disappointment.”

“Captain Kuro!”

“We’re saved!”

“Oh thank the Elder Dragons!”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I whispered to Katara, gently moving her so I was between her and Kuro.

What happened next… it was one thing to see it on the page or in an anime, it was another thing to see it in real life. One minute, Kuro was standing there, clawed gloves on and swaying from side to side like a drunkard, the next he vanished and pirates began to fall to the ground with blood spurting from their chest.

Rocks split, and Katara hugged my back, moments before I felt five razor sharp blades cut through the fur on my chest. I grunted, but didn’t move, I wouldn’t risk leaving that sick fuck an opening to get to Katara or our baby.

Somehow, Luffy managed to catch Kuro’s leg. From a technical perspective, watching the two fight was… insane. Luffy clearly had some sort of training, though it was altered to make full use of her elastic physiology, but powers aside it was still relatively sane. Kuro’s choice of weapons, my admittedly limited knowledge of physics told me, should be such a stupid design for weapons. The human body should not be able to produce enough force to make having a sword blade on the end of each finger viable, that’s without getting into edge alignment and having the force of each attack being spread out amongst multiple points of contact. But somehow it worked.

Again, Kuro did his drunken swaying. Again he vanished and pirates started dying. Again he came towards Katara and I, but this time I saw a faint flicker as he was attacking. Throwing my head back, I avoided all but the last blade which carved a diagonal line from the left side of my forehead, through my right eye and out my cheekbone.

My vision cut in half as my hands flew up to my face. I bellowed in pain, and barely managed to stay focused enough to watch Luffy finish Kuro. The pirates fled, dragging their unconscious captain with them. I doubt he’d live for much longer in their tender clutches. Of course, it was only then, as the action was wrapping up and the girl from the mansion arrived, that I heard a rather significant wet sound coming from Katara.

“Oh Yue… it’s time.”