Helena's POV
Helena's mana ran out and her body shifted back. Her hair lost its spikes and lay flat against her head, falling into her eyes and drenched in sweat. She felt the air pressure change in the arena. It was heavy, like a weight on her shoulders from above a moment before the screams began.
"Gavin! You have to control yourself! Erza's alive!" Helena's words fell on deaf ears as she screamed into the arena. All around her was chaos and horror.
She covered her mouth with her hand, covered in blood and color paled from her face. A wave of darkness magic flowed across the arena like a tsunami-powerful, all consuming. It enveloped every piece of debris, every discarded weapon, every fallen body. Like a wave of despair it consumed everything, swallowing it whole.
Erza groaned beside her as AJ continued trying to heal the worst of her injury. Helena scooted closer but kept her eyes on the scene before them.
One by one, shadow tendrils snaked out through the wave of darkness and wrapped around the limps of the soldiers. They moved like living, breathing apparitions as they wrapped, tightened, and pulled the enemy down into the depths of the darkness.
Some of the soldiers kept to their training. They aimed their weapons, their magic, whatever they had at the tendrils and rolling wave of darkness and fired. Kinetic, explosives, and mana based attacks slammed into the weaving, breathing tendrils of shadows as they grabbed onto their targets.
None of it mattered.
The shadows moving like living entities as they pulled their targets down into the abyss. The soldiers screamed and thrashed about, bashing the tendrils with everything they had to get them to dislodge their dark grip, but to no avail.
Helena felt her stomach heave at the pure slaughter in front of her. Gavin wasn't just fighting to survive or protect the students anymore. He was killing everyone on the other side of that wall. Dozens of trained, armed mercenaries were gone within moments. The overwhelming numbers that were battering them down, reduced in a few heartbeats.
"Where in the hell is that wolf?" One commander cried out as he threw out his hand and a torrent of fire engulfed the wave of darkness in front of him. The magic seemed to work in halting the advance, but only momentarily.
"I can't see him anywhere. How can a single animal have this much mana? It's unnatural!" Another commander responded calmly, sweat pouring down his face as he extended both his arms and a gale of wind joined with the fire, strengthening their limited defensive line.
"You," a dark, rumbling voice echoed around them. It was quiet, as if it whispered to each of them without shouting and the air pressure in the arena grew heavier. "You will all die today. Right here. Right now."
Helena almost felt a sigh of relief escape her lips. He's still conscious ? Or alert? But he seemed so lost before? So which is it? Is he lost in his power? A berserker focused on carnage and bloodshed, or does he have some semblance of rational thought? Either situation did not bode well. Either would end in tragedy.
"Do not mock us boy! I have killed plenty of wolves before you! Clan after clan have felt my wrath. Felt my hatred as they met their end!" The blond man with the three line scar down his face called out, eyes blazing gold as he glanced around.
"Every clan leader I've come across was weak, pathetic! They died begging for their lives at my feet, and you will end up there just the same." He called out, his golden mana wrapped around himself and those soldiers closest to him. The golden mana helped to push back the rolling darkness, acting as a protective barrier against Gavin's horrific spell.
"Before this hour is up, I will bathe in your entrails. Too many lives have been lost. You have taken that which is most precious to me." Gavin's voice grew in its cadence. It started low and rumbling and shook Helena to her core as she looked around trying to find him. By the end, it was a rage filled rasp as the tendrils halted their advance.
The wave of darkness began to recede then. It pulled back towards the destroyed wall that separated the two arena's. Out from the shadows rose Gavin's imposing form. Crimson mana swirled around him in a chaotic storm as he crouched low, calculating as he regarded the few members left of the enemy's forces. "This ends now."
He threw his head back and roared to the heavens. The howl he unleashed sent a shockwave through both arena's like a sonic boom. Helena felt the force of the impact and cried out as she was pushed back. AJ wrapped her injured body around Erza to keep the shockwave from doing more damage to the injured Were-Cat. "Damn it Gavin! I keep trying to tell you! Erza is alive!" Helena tried to call out, but her voice was muted in her throat as the next moment the effects of the howl washed over her.
Utter fear and hopelessness shredded her heart. There was nothing anything of them could do. Gavin was a walking incarnation of natures fury and destruction at this point. How could anything stand up to him. They were wrong for this, wrong for pushing him to this extreme. Oh gods, he's going to kill us all, isn't he?
Her body trembled and she lost control of her bladder while she sat there, eyes transfixed on Gavin's hulking form. The few soldiers that remained unprotected by the golden mana cried out and dropped their weapons. They turned and fled back the way they came. Only to remember at the last moment that they blocked the entrances when they arrived.
The leader with the scar cursed and shot a blast of fire towards Gavin. "That cheap trick wont work on me, you mangy dog."
Gavin swatted the fireball aside with his hand. His hackles rose and he took a step forward. The next instant he was gone. The soldier to the right of the leader cried out the moment a fist was thrust through his rib cage. Blood poured out both the front and back of the man as the still beating heart was crushed in the wolf's claws.
"I'd rather kill you with my bare hands." Gavin roared in anger and he jerked forward, his razor sharp canines snapping on the throat of the soldier that stood a little too close and was a little too slow to respond. With a vicious snarl, Gavin tore the throat of the second soldier free and let him crumple to the ground.
The leader and the marksman next to him cursed as they jumped back and the rest of the soldiers regained enough of their wits to open fire where the black wolf was. But, Gavin had already moved. Using his enhanced speed and strength, he had jumped into the rafters and landed on the shoulders of a third soldier, his weight crumpled the man in an instant.
Using speed, strength and sheer brutality, Gavin made quick work of the remaining soldiers until only two remained. The blonde leader with the three scar lines down the left side of his face, and the black marksman with the cross shaped scar on his cheek.
Both of them had managed to barely avoid Gavin's fangs and claws each time he attempted to end their lives.
Erza stirred beside Helena and she looked over. "Thank the gods your awake!" Helena said, helping Erza sit upright.
Erza held onto her pounding temple and looked around, her face growing paler by the moment. "What in seven hells happened?"
AJ spoke up. Her expression guarded as she kept her eyes trained on Gavin's movements. "Your wolf."
Erza followed her gaze and covered her mouth with her hand. She saw all the torn bodies that littered the arena floor. She noticed that every single one was brutally killed in some fashion. But what she noticed most, was how different Gavin looked at the far end of the arena. "What happened to him?" She struggled to rise to her feet. Her legs weak and unresponsive.
AJ helped her to stand. "An explosive round landed too close I think. That's what separated us, injured my wing, and knocked you out. Then Gavin kinda went…" AJ paused unsure how to finish describing the situation.
"Berserk?" Helena offered.
AJ nodded. "Yeah, berserk is 'prolly the best term for it. Something changed after you went down. His power went out of control. HE, went out of control."
Erza watched as Gavin's monstrous form danced with the last two enemy forces. Somehow, they always seemed one step ahead of him. Just an inch in front of his claws, a dodge just in time. A turn to the side. A jump back at the right moment.
Erza's heart ached as she watched the way he struggled, even in his berserk state against the remaining two enemies. He snarled and spun, his claws extended as he tried to catch the marksman off guard. No matter what Gavin tried, he couldn't land a decisive blow to finish this fight.
"He can't keep that form up for long. He's burning through mana and stamina too quickly." AJ observed next to them.
Helena swallowed, her mouth and throat dry and burned from the smoke and ash in the arena. "What can we do to help him?" She struggled to her feet. Her limbs shook from the effort and she dropped to the ground again with a curse.
AJ shook her head. "In this state, he's not likely to recognize friend from foe." She bit her lip, worry and indecision crossed her face. "All we can do is watch, and pray he survives."