Half moon, half plans...

When morning had broke after the events of last night, Bruce Wayne wasted no time in preparing the mansion. With Alfred sent away someplace safe for his own good, Bruce was forced to make the preparations himself. At the very least, Alfred had managed to get the items he needed. Long bundles of garlic were strung around each window of the mansion like garlands. The light bulbs to his home were replaced with UV lights including the security lights at that the exterior of the mansion and gates. The drawback to this is he would most likely get a tan from over exposure, but that would be if he LIVED in the mansion. Heading down to the plumbing, Bruce opened the personal reservoir for the emergency sprinklers that had put out the fires caused by Power Girl when she was mind controlled, taking the 10-gallon drum of holy water Alfred had the local church bless and fill the remaining tank with the water. The final act to make his damaged mansion safe from a vampire attack, he had given Alfred enough funds to purchase a silver cross from the Gotham church, a charitable donation of $250,000.00 for the small and simple item in the wooden box it came in. Picking it up with his bare fingers, Bruce was given a surprise when he recoiled his hand away, his fingers burned.

Looking back down at his scorched hand, his eyes narrowed when he witnessed the burns rapidly heal, the pain subsiding. Using a nearby cloth, he picked the cross up and climbed the ladder that was set up at the front of the mansion’s front hall doors. Nailing the item above the mantle of the front door, Bruce had completed his task of making his home vampire proof. But there were still flaws. Power Girl had the subtlety of a runaway freight train when she first attacked. The living room had a gapping hole in the roof that continued through the floor and basement floor all the way down to the Batcave. He had weather tarp set up to block out the hole in the roof and removed all the damaged furniture that had been destroyed in her rampage. But for now, Batman was left without his Batmobile and Batwing.

But that wasn’t the worst of his problems.

He had ten days until the full moon, ten days to think of a plan to keep his worse self contained. He still didn’t have all the information he needed, he didn’t remember ANY of the events when he changed, anything he did when that… Wolf rampaged through his city and tore apart the Joker and his crew. He didn’t know if it was intelligent, or a feral berserker. The Batcave had lockdown procedures, if he had been reduced to a mindless animal, he doubted a giant wolf could claw its way through hundreds of feet of solid granite to get out. But he was still doubtful.

At the very least, as compromised as his home was, Dracula was in no better condition. With a little help from Oracle and Huntress, he burned down his hiding place and freed his food supply. This would make Dracula more dangerous, but now he couldn’t hide in the shadows anymore. To keep his strength, the vampire count would have to rest in his native earth in between nights. He wasn’t sure how much of the man’s native soil had been shipped from the S.S. Ceres but whatever was sent to the Riddler’s hiding place was gone now.

“There’s still the matter of the other werewolves, the ones… Spawned from when my other self.” If anything, they were an even GREATER threat than Dracula, werewolves were human time bombs. Unsuspecting people who in the light of the full moon would go on a mindless rampage until sun up. And if he was right, they too had no memories of what they did when they turned, innocent people turned into mindless predators and they’d never know it. He already had a map of who had died during the full moon and the likely candidates who were bitten, now it was a matter of finding them and whomever THEY bit as well. Getting up from his seat, Bruce looked out the window to where the sun had already set after a day’s worth of work preparing his home. The sun was down, and the half moon was already showing out in the night’s sky. “Ten days to find what must be dozens of people who may have blacked out on that night, time to find tho…”

A tightness gripped his chest and neck, his heart suddenly booming in his ears like he had run a marathon, staggering back until he collapsed against the wall, Bruce winced and coughed as his cloths grew tight on him. “Wha… What is…” Looking at his hand, he was horrified to find his finger nails growing thicker and sharp, black fur spreading from the back of his hand and crawling up his arm. Impossible he thought, it wasn’t even the full moon! His shoes burst open to free his splayed-out feet, his toes nails sprouting sharp claws that dug at the wood floor as he doubled in size and bulk, his shirt and pants tearing at the seams when his muscles out grew them. Black fur began to spread across his arms and back and his ankles lengthened before he repositioned himself to keep his balance. A long black tail had grown out from the base of his spine when he collapsed to all fours, clutching at his changing skull when the fur had crawled up his neck. With a cry that quickly turned to a growl and then to a full-blown howl, the black wolf stood to its full 13-foot height and sniffed the air.

Leaping out of the hole in the ceiling, the wolf darted across the lawn and ran full speed towards the city.

*

At the Gotham park, a woman was screaming, panicking for her life as she ran to escape. Going for a late-night jog with her boyfriend, the two had stopped for some water at a drinking fountain. Everything was going great… Until her boyfriend was tackled to the ground by a pack of giant wolves. The sight alone of the man being torn apart was too much for the woman as she frantically ran for her safety, she didn’t look back. Panting hoarse and stumbling when her legs gave out after a hundred feet, she looked over her shoulder and gasped in horror. They never lost her, they had been following her the entire time, keeping their distance to enjoy the chase. Close enough to be seen but far enough to be obscured by the darkness of the night except for their glowing yellow eyes, the woman found herself surrounded by five giant wolves, their teeth bared like some cruel smile, their teeth caked in the blood.

Whimpering, she didn’t even have the chance to raise her arms in reaction when one of them lunged for her. But what was more terrifying wasn’t the five monsters looming over her, or the wolf attacking her, or the fear of joining her boyfriend, it was the massive black wolf that came out of nowhere, clamping its jaws around the neck of the brown wolf that leapt to attack her. With the sickening sound of crushed bone and its head going limp and dangling from the shoulder before falling clean off and rolling across the grass, the massive black wolf hoisted the smaller wolf with its jaws back at the rest of the pack that had backed off when it arrived. Standing on all fours and positioning itself between the prone woman and the pack of five wolves, now counting four when the corpse of the fifth began to diminish and rot.

Wild eyed and growling at the four beasts, the massive black wolf glared at them all. Mindless save for the sport of the hunt, the four predators still eyed the woman still petrified behind their adversary. Attempting to circle the black wolf, the four took a chance and pounced. Two clamped their jaws on the wolf’s forepaw and shoulder while the third took to its left forepaw. The forth, finding an opening, growled out before darting towards the woman. It’s attack never even came close when a massive claw grabbed it by its head and slammed it down to the concrete. With inhuman strength, the black wolf crushed its skull like a grape. Growling in rage, the massive wolf grabbed the smaller wolf still biting down on his arm, with a whining cry the attacking wolf’s head was crushed under the grip of the larger beast and thrown across the park, practically folding in half when its body struck a light post with the force to knock it over. Now with only two attackers, the monster of a wolf clamped its razor-sharp jaws down on the one that twisted and gnawed on his arm, hearing another pain filled whine when he clamped his fangs deep into the creature and bit its head clean off. With both hands free, and his wounds rapidly healing, the black wolf grabbed the last attacker and hoisted it off his shoulder to roll onto its back and spin the offending creature around to see it face to face. Tightening its claws like fists, the massive black wolf punched and pulverised the wolf’s head and chest, reducing its skull to pasteurized meat and bone.

With the pack dealt with, the massive black wolf roared out in triumph, breathing hard and licking his wounds. All around him the remaining bodies of the wolves began to shrink, rapidly losing mass before rotting like fruit. Hearing a whimper, the massive wolf spun around and glared at the source of the sound. Looming over the still terrified and paralyzed woman sitting on the ground, she didn’t know what to do or how to react when the monster made eye contact with her. Slowly it raised a massive arm towards her, its claws gleaming in the moonlight as its massive paw reached out for her, only to softly pat her on the head.

Regaining her sense of self and looking up at the massive wolf, the wild look in its eyes was gone, the bloodlust almost non-existent. Lifting its clawed hand again, the wolf pointed towards the exit of the park, towards the direction of the Gotham Police. Looking to where the wolf point and back at the pitch-black creature, she gasped when she heard it speak.

“Go…”

Scrambling to her feet, the woman ran, her energy renewed as she desperately sought safety in where the monster pointed.

Standing to his full height and looking over to the five headless human corpses that littered the park, the massive wolf sneered, watching their bodies rapidly rot, almost like their body’s metabolism was so high it was burning itself up from the inside out. There had to be more, these five couldn’t possibly be the last of them. Sniffing the air and darting his ears to the slightest change in the air. The wolf was hunting, not for prey, but for competition. A thought had been running through its head since it woke to the half moon. 'Find the other wolves'. With ears that could hear anything for blocks away, and eyes even better still, nothing could escape the black wolf’s senses.

Nothing but the pair of white furred claws that clasped playfully around his eyes from behind, along with a smiling muzzle that pressed against his ear.

“Peekaboo!”