Riiiight, the plan. Did they ever stick to plans at this point? They weren’t ones to follow the rules anyone. Besides if their main goal was to kill Anya, wouldn’t it be best to exhaust any means necessary to end it once and for all? This was Yuri’s mentality at the moment, especially since years of torment and running away was so close to coming to an end. It was now or never at this point. “Fuck the plan!” he yelled out. His expression turned into a concerned one as he watched his cousin fight off his own pack. This was too real…Snapping out of his thoughts, he listened to Luke telling him to go ahead. “You’re insane! There’s still so many of th—” He felt a pang of pain behind him, an attempt from one of her aunt’s henchmen to bash his head, but clearly they weren’t able to reach. A few punches thrown and a mini brawl out, Yuri eventually grabbed and lifted them by the neck, gripping it tightly before knocking them out completely. Taking note of what his cousin said, the werewolf sighed in defeat and began to make his way towards the stairs. “Fine! And got it…Got it! You better hurry up, you’re slackin’ bro!” While he was heading up, he heard commotion behind him and noticed that Luke covering for him. A bloody grin crept onto his lips as he gave a shrug, “—Okay maybe a little, but still get your ass over to us!”
With that being said, he rushed off and on the way, he decided to pick up a brass knuckles and a blade for his weapon of choice should he face combat. He tucks the blade away for emergency backup, but uses the brass knuckle as it was better to be safe than sorry. Noticing a trail of bodies, Yuri followed it as it led him to Nikolai and Anastasiya. This was it—it was what they’ve been waiting for their whole life. “He’s fucking slow…” he whispered back. A means to say that he was on the way. He kept his gaze on his aunt who reeked of death and destruction, a part of him would have feared her…But he told himself there was no use if he wanted this to be over. Nodding in response to his brother’s plan, Yuri remembered it was just like old times when they trained.
Yuri ignored Anastasiya’s words, something along the lines of being foolish, bringing up his mother, how a waste of potential he was. He couldn’t afford to be distracted and so, he went ahead and made the first move. If he could keep Anya’s attention on him then either Nik and or Luke can finish her off. He approached her slowly and analyzed her movements, before dodging her silver blade and throwing in a punch to her abdomen with the brass knuckle. The impact was brief as she was able to move away on time and felt a burn as her blade briefly came in contact with his skin. Stepping away, he hisses in pain and decided to charge head on as she used his height to his advantage to tackle her and slam her wrists on the ground in order for her to let go of the blade. “Take it!” he yelled. He succeeds in getting that away from them, but felt her kneeing him deep and throwing him off of her with his strength. “Shit!”
The bodies lining the ground make him wince. He knows them. He’s sparred with them, killed with them. Hell, Luke thinks he had dinner with them and their family once upon a time. It makes his blood curdle to know he’s had a hand in sending them away, he’s always preferred the route of sniping to close combat for this reason. “Started without me, I see? Not like you to play with us, mother.” He looks away from them, settling a gaze on his mother, wiping a hand across his face to wipe away the blood clinging to his face. His wounds knit slowly, slowly, too many things at once to be much use. He and his mother lock gazes, but she doesn’t speak, and he cannot read the look in her eyes.
Nor does he try as Yuri charges into action, a move Luke knows will fail before he finishes it. His cousin surprises him, managing to tackle her to the ground. Luke shoots forward, snagging the blade off the ground and spinning out of reach as his mother flings Yuri off. Her eyes are narrowed, the first sign of annoyance. “It’s over,” he warns her, “You’ll run out of bullets before one of us hits the ground.” He doesn’t fancy one of those silver bullets catching him, he can still feel the sting of silver in his earlier wounds. A silver bullet in the right spot is a guaranteed death, and none of them are foolish enough to forget it. Just as his mother isn’t stupid enough to think bullets will kill them before one of them throws a weapon. For a second, Luke doesn’t know what’s going to happen, the room tense and quiet, balanced on a knife’s edge with one side being violence and one side being freedom. Which way do they fall?
His mother isn’t the type to sit down without a fight. No, Luke isn’t sure her endgame now, but he knows she has one, and locking eyes with her once more is a bit like staring into an abyss. Her eyes glint, lips quirking at the corners at him as if they are sharing a private joke. His own eyes widening in surprise, he reaches forward, attempting to jerk his cousins back several feet. “She’s changing, watch out!” he says, knife dropping to the ground, wincing as she tugs on the pack bonds he still loosely shares. She’s alpha for a reason, and small as their pack has become in the last few minutes with every death he and his cousins inflicted, and her change is faster than a normal wolves. Luke flinches, feeling the weakness as she steals from the pack, his hand presses against the wall. “Fuck.” He didn’t think she would take the risk.
The advantage of the number doesn’t mean much in the presence of Anastasiya. After all, she has survived all this year as the matriarch of the Sokolovs. Nikolai doesn’t let his guard down and interjects whenever her blade draws near Yuri. One millisecond of lost focus, her silver knives lunge in from the blindspots like fangs of a serpent. By the time Yuri tackles her to the ground, Nikolai is covered in burning cuts from the silver. He only registers the presence of Lukyan from the sound behind him. “You’re late.” He says, struggling to catch his breath.
After kicking Yuri off of her, Anastasiya rises to her feet and keeps the distance from the rest of the Sokolovs. Lightning fast, she draws her revolver again, the gunpoint at Lukyan. Her finger, however, does not pull the trigger immediately. Suddenly, in the pale blue of her eyes is the color of the wintry vault of heaven, the firmament no bird dares to take flight. It blazes like dusk only to bottle freezing dawn. A painter might pluck out the color of the wandering sky in blizzard, a furious storm or blissful rain in those eyes, but alas, this is no gallery and no one here is searching for beauty.
A second drags out, arduous and restless, before the revolver sighs an empty tick.
A smile, like a fracture, appears on Anastasiya. “Seventy-two.” She says, as her revolver drops to the floor. “It’s a pass, but you boys could’ve done better than this.” She draws a labored breath, running a hand through her silver hair. The crimson air shifts uncomfortably as her body lurches forward. “Perhaps you’ll get better marks in finals.” With horrifying sounds of breaking bones and turning flesh, Anastasiya Sokolova disappears. In front of them is a terrifyingly giant wolf, adorned in silver fur.
Nikolai freezes as soon as he senses the shifting. The primal fear etched deep to his core whispers him the worst case scenario-- he has not expected Anastasiya to shift in the middle of a fight, and he has greatly underestimated how fast she could change. “Fucking hell,” he curses before getting yanked backward by Lukyan. Where he and Yuri stood a second ago is a giant claw mark as the wolf sliced through the metal flooring as if it were made out of butter.
In that moment, he feels as though the time had slowed down to a tick. Nikolai glances at Yuri and Lukyan stumbling backward, even though from the corner of his eyes, he can sense that Anastasiya is reeling back to strike again. Her fangs are made to cut through veins and bathe in blood... It wouldn’t take a second to decapitate a man and butcher another. Against such monstrosity, men are nothing but cowering fledglings.
And as Nikolai turns to face the wolf, flashes of memory floods him. He sees that one winter afternoon where Yuri and he ambushed Lukyan with snowballs. He relives the moment he pulled the trigger repeatedly until the bloody mess that was once his father painted the entire wall. He remembers, waking up as indescribable terror seized him in the middle of the night, to find Rafael sleeping next to him-- and that moment, he realized that he wanted Rafael to be happy, even in some different time, different space where they had never met, even if he wasn’t a part of Rafael’s life.
“Whatever happens,” Nikolai grits his teeth, letting the shaky breath leave him, “don’t hesitate.” He says to Yuri and Lukyan behind him. He drops the axe next to Anastasiya’s silver knife.
Yekaterina once said, ‘You protect him... and he will protect you.’
Anastasiya lunges forward. Nikolai doesn’t falter. Instead, he yields his right arm to her bloodthirsty teeth. As they sink into his flesh, veins burst opening and bones breaking, Nikolai lets out a guttural noise somewhere between pained scream and growl. His right hand grabs the jaw. The other hand shoots out, and tightens around the wolf’s neck. His claws latch and do not let go. And for a brief moment, he holds down Anastasiya.
