Synopsis: Kaitlin continues to struggle with controlling her Gammawolf transformations as her step-mother Valerie tries to offer her solace from her own experiences. When they encounter a dangerous foe it will be up to Kaitlin to determine if the Gammawolf will swallow her whole with regret or if she'll push through to grow with her newfound abilities.

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Mall Brawl

by K9Lupus

Kaitlin was already imagining the collar-shaped void that would form surrounding the otherwise immaculately sunburned skin from where her sweat-soaked hands had been plastered to the back of her neck for the past hour. The late afternoon sun was a raging inferno in the sky, ceaseless and burning. Dogs lay beside their owners in the shade of the small park she and her step-mother Valerie were now passing. Birds napped high within the trees. Children frolicked among the haphazard streams of cooling waters in the play fountains. Kaitlin half considered throwing herself in among the fray, claiming the splashing puddles at her feet as her own watery dominion. Away from their antics, gathered family members surrounded charcoal-filled barbecue pits, men displaying varying degrees of rounding beer bellies loosed upon the world from their open summer shirts.

Valerie betrayed no sign of distress from the imposing heat on her face as she continued to carry herself with the same calm, quiet grace Kaitlin had come to know. Valerie's occasional dabbing of a stored handkerchief against the tilted mouth of the water bottle she carried to then apply cooling relief across her brow verified she was still in fact, human. Mostly anyway. As they walked, Kaitlin kept her gaze fixated on the cobblestone pathway ahead, content to count out the number of tarnished red stones that remained among the crowd of gray. They were now an endangered species after the recent renovation project across the town the previous spring and a welcome distraction from the cyclical thoughts berating her for agreeing to go out on this walk with Valerie in the first place.

Kaitlin slumped back against the corrugated metal beneath the awning of the closed-down shop they had chosen to rest at. The sounds of the park were distant and faint here with barely any traffic traversing through this forgotten and largely abandoned stretch of town. Like a bird of prey descending from the sky, its target still a mile or more below its talons, Valerie calculatingly chose her moments. Her hand came to lay across one of Kaitlin's, unfazed by the dried particles of salt there.

“You know we can talk about what happened right sweetheart?” Valerie said, breaking the silence between them.

Several days before, following an incident at work such despair and anger had passed over Kaitlin that she had involuntarily transformed into her Gammawolf form. If Valerie and Brynhilde hadn't been there to console her Kaitlin wasn't sure what kind of damage she could have wrought on their home or worse if she had managed to get outside to relieve her self-directed fury instead.

“I'm good Val. I don't think there's anything more we need to say about it.” Kaitlin answered, pulling her hand away and hooking her thumbs into her jean pockets.

“But if we don't say anything at all about it, it's only going to keep eating you up inside. It's like you're wanting this to keep happening over and over. I really want to help you, but I can't do that if you keep...”

“Please just stop!” Kaitlin said through a barely restrained shout.

“It was bad enough just happening. I've been thinking a lot about it. It was embarrassing and I keep feeling like I haven't gotten any better at controlling this other part of me now. It's been what, already a few months now and things are still the same. You and Bryn are trying...I get that, but I want to do better for me too ok? It's my body after all.” Kaitlin continued before slumping her head forward between her knees.

Valerie's gaze softened, and she gently touched Kaitlin's shoulder. It stayed frozen in place.

“Kaity, I know you want to get better at managing it, but you have to realize that control is first built upon a foundation of understanding, and if you are having trouble understanding yourself and your role now that....things are different, then you're not going to be able to make the difficult choices that you need to when they come up.

People are going to be put at risk, you among them if you're not able to get a handle on your transformations. And trust me, we will get to that point. It took quite a while for me to handle my new shape too. It's not going to happen all at once, but you need to figure out for yourself where you want the next step of your progress to go and then do what's needed to get yourself there.”

Images of screams and the hulking green-furred mass of her body causing untold destruction flooded Kaitlin's thoughts. One day she was going to lose control and neither of her step-parents would be there. She would be alone and anything that happened after that would be her fault. She'd have no one to blame except herself. The rising heat of Kaitlin's body compounded itself against the heated summer air until she no longer could drive away the pain.

Being what I am is no gift, only a misplaced curse from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Valerie, seeing the first signs of change beginning to pass over her step-daughter, grabbed her by the arm and hoisted her back up to her feet. They hobbled together down the street as Kaitlin's breathing deepened amid the dull pops of changing bones and sliding tissue.

There's a place not far from here that can work if she holds out for a little bit.

Valerie encouraged Kaitlin to hasten her pace, and the two were practically jogging side by side while Valerie occasionally jerked her head from side to side to regain her bearings. The added motion was a double-edged sword; moving them more rapidly to their destination, but simultaneously fueling Kaitlin's fearful anxiety of her succumbing to the billowing emerald fires of the Gammawolf within her.

Scraps of green-tinged fur were already beginning to press through across Kaitlin's arms when they finally rounded the corner leading to the abandoned warehouse. The impossible was being made real again. Valerie led Kaitlin to the back where an unhinged shutter door provided access to the large interior. Heavy cobwebs lined the edges of the shadowed, cavernous space, empty save a few scattered storage containers and rotting palettes. Kaitlin's groans faintly echoed against the walls with every step as her transformation continued unabated.

Valerie eased Kaitlin down against one of the concrete walls and assisted in removing the strained fabric of her clothes beneath her rapidly changing body. A light dusting of greenish fur coated the majority of her body now as she breathed in uneven puffs through the expanded barrel of her chest. Long sets of ebony claws had already pushed their way through her once fragile nails; her palms and the undersides of her feet taking on a roughened, darkened texture. The naked growth of her lengthening tail slid to and fro across the ground. Kaitlin gritted her teeth through the pain, mounting a last defense to retain her last mental defenses of reason that had lay mutiny to her psyche and spiraled out into her current state. Exhausted and unable to break the cycle, there was only one release; to give in to the wild instincts threatening to crash through the crumbling walls of her mind.

The Gammawolf exuberantly answered Kaitlin's weary call, and pressed through with all its might, taking the change from a coursing river to an engulfing flash flood. Veins pulsed from fingertip to toe as powerful mounds of new muscle stitched themselves atop of Kaitlin's rearranging tendons and bones. More and more of the young woman quickly vanished beneath her increasingly lupine form. Her face stretched forward to form a long muzzle lined with glistening, curved fangs. Kaitlin howled then, a sound bubbled up from the deep, unquenchable well of her fears, doubts and frustrations loosed in wordless expression upon the world around her. None answered back.

All the while Valerie could do little more than offer the same condolences she had times prior, quietly caressing through the Gammawolf's fur until it grew still and gazed at her through its radiant, neon-green eyes. It heaved a cavernous series of breaths beside her, and Valerie was pleased that her presence quickly soothed the beast. A connective bridge had formed between the two gamma-afflicted beings and this developed signal helped quickly dissipate the stoked fury within the Gammawolf like a wildfire quickly exhausting all its surrounding fuel. With none to direct its fury towards outside of itself, it slowly drifted off to an uneasy slumber.

*******

The sun had already crossed partway over the rim of the sky when Kaitlin's transformation had finally eased back enough for them to leave their impromptu hideaway. She awoke, her whole body aching as it lay partway across her step-mother's lap. A few stray wolven features lingered, but none so drastic as to draw attention outside of close examination. The area had been left relatively unscathed from her transformation, only baring a few stray claw marks as testament to the immense beast it had bore witness too. Valerie spoke as Kaitlin changed back into her street clothes:

“I'm glad that you were able to safely change hun, and I'm sorry if what I was saying at the time was too hard to hear right now. I know you are trying hard to figure all of this out, and sometimes me laying it on thick isn't necessarily the best strategy to help with that.”

“You're a parent. Parents are good at messing things up for their kids sometimes.” she answered back with an endearing tilt of her head.

“I think that's the closest you've come to actually giving me a direct compliment in some time.” Valerie said, feigning an air of her customary seriousness.

They both laughed, the loudest either of them had since Kaitlin's initial transformation at the laboratory

“We can put more time towards lessons to help with better management of your emotions and the changes too. When you transform and your thoughts are focused on you that goes fairly well. Now we need to take care of the rest of the scenarios.” Valerie said.

“I really don't know how I'm supposed to be able to do that. Everything goes hazy and white, and then I'm lost to it.” Kaitlin answered with a sigh looking at her still thickened fingers and the vestiges of darkened pads beneath them.

“When you get to that point, for right now focus your thoughts on what it is that you want to accomplish; try to blank everything else from your vision. Let all of the distractions and worries fade away....make them gone by focusing on that one thing you want to do. Give room for nothing else to exist in that moment. And again, it's not going to happen all at once, but if you recognize the little victories you achieve in getting there eventually you'll form a path you can take over and over. Beyond all else I hope that you remember that I know I can be a jerk sometimes, but you are family first and foremost. I care, and I want you to succeed sweetheart.”

“You sure have a strange way of showing it sometimes.” Kaitlin rebutted.

Valerie rubbed the heel of her hand up through Kaitlin's hair, revealing a few lingering scraps of green-tinted fur meshed within.

“Well I think it's safe to say that we are a pretty strange family, so that's probably in our best interests.” Valerie said, managing a terribly awkward wink with the use of too many compensating facial muscles.

“I still have my challenges too managing my other self. This isn't something that 100% goes away, but in time you will see how to use it in the way that helps the most people possible. I promise.”

*******

Before turning back home for the evening, Kaitlin and Valerie continued several streets down from the abandoned warehouse to a local mall to grab a few last minute items and give time for the last wisps of transformation to abate entirely. The cooling of the outdoor air combined with the air-conditioned entire of the mall bounced Kaitlin's mood back up before she knew it. Sadly,the day had yet to exhaust its roller coaster of emotions for them both.

A thunderous boom sounded from deeper within the mall; a gray plume of concrete dust and smoke rising up from one of the jewelry stores cramped between its adjacent neighbors. Kaitlin saw the imposing figure of a man, more kin to be called a giant as he towered over the former doorway of the store. Everywhere patrons screamed. Kaitlin could make out thick plates of military-grade armor covering the rolling muscles of the man's chest and legs, his great, hulking figure blowing a fresh puff of concrete dust off his engorged knuckles. Between the shouts of fleeing occupants of the mall he shouted out orders to two smaller individuals afflicted with a similarly robust, yet somewhat reduced stature in an unrecognized accent.

The two henchmen appeared to be enjoying themselves, laughing like manic hyenas as they quickly stuffed piles of gems and necklaces into expansive openings at their backs. Then the man turned around, surveying and relishing in the symphony of chaos he had wrought. He spotted Kaitlin and Valerie, unflinching and not fleeing like the rest; Kaitlin through fear, Valerie through her calculated courage. The beady rims of his dark eyes quickly expanded and closing again as he screamed a slobbery outcry towards them. He would show all no matter how small that none could stand against them. Then he charged, his huge feet rumbling the space around him with every step while the glaring mall lights reflected off of the shiny surface of his perfectly shaved head.

Faced with the swift and certain end before her, Kaitlin once more sank into the depths of her fear. It seized her completely into an immobile, complete despair. These were the kinds of situations she worked hard to avoid; barely able to manage picking out what she wanted for dinner let alone summon the gall to consider herself a hero. However, heroic opportunities seldom subscribe to convenience, and so this moment would breed a new light within her to reveal what she was most capable of.

Valerie forced Kaitlin out of her deer in the headlights moment, tumbling them together into a heap against a wooden bench flopped over to its side from the man's initial impact at the jewelry store. The criminal's charge carried itself several dozen feet further beyond where they had only narrowly avoided it.

“Kaitlin, find someplace safe. I'll take care of this.” Valerie urged, gazing deep into Kaitlin's shaky, panic-stricken eyes. She leaned forward, kissed Kaitlin's brow and swung her blonde hair back into place behind her shoulders. Valerie rose to face the goliath before her with a furrowed, determined brow. She pondered how the criminal had achieved his outlandish proportions. Was it exposure to a similar strain of gamma-radiation like Kaitlin and herself? Or perhaps the technology had been modified in some fashion? Time for questioning could come later as first Valerie needed to get hold of the situation.

She rushed in the direction of the large figure, her body already swelling with inhuman layers of massive muscle with each powerful step in her rapidly lengthening stride. Her specialized clothing strained against the tremendous bulk it contained beneath it, but would hold firm for her combat needs. Pale skin bronzed to a deepening orange and her eyes radiated an emerald fire similar to Kaitlin's during her change. Within them they held the determination necessary to put a prompt and definitive end to this criminal's spree. Cracks formed beneath the rumbling pounding of her footsteps until she had reached a similar size to the altered criminal. Valerie bellowed an undulating cry, swirls of pressurized air forced forward to announce the end of her gamma-transformation.

The giant man grinned, pleased with the thought of the challenge this unexpected development would bring forth, and allowed the bags at his shoulders to fall to the wayside. His minions could handle the rest from here .

The two titans began a match that would rival any scene between the fiercest of predators out in the wild. Slugging fists and tremendous cries bounced from one to the other as Valerie sought to gain the upper hand. Kaitlin could only stare in awe as the combatants raged on. They tumbled and tossed the huge masses of their bodies with uncanny speed and power. Valerie secured a grip around one of the giant man's beefy arms and tossed him headlong back into the rapidly degrading ruins of the jewelry store.

Kaitlin heard the loud, piercing wail of a child in the direction of the floor below. In the chaos of the many fleeing bodies the young girl had been separated from and cried out for her mother with tears streaming down her face. Above her the battle raged on, with Valerie and the criminal making their way to their upper level and simultaneously disabling any further use of the escalators there for people to escape. Kaitlin watched in horror as a chunk of the concrete overhang from the floor above cracked free, pulled away from its wrought-iron bearings and began its descending free fall right where the young girl was standing.

Kaitlin's body moved before her mind could consider otherwise, dashing with all her might to close the gap between herself and the child. She moved more quickly than she ever remembered moving before. An outstretched hand caught hold of one lone, white elastic overall strap while a dark, uniform shadow loomed above her. She more tossed the child away right as a dust cloud covered them both in an ashen gray. Kaitlin was pleased to hear the sound of a second set of coughing alongside her own. Then a new scream was heard from a figure swiveling her head from side to side, hands clasped around her mouth in a funnel.

“Steph! Stephy-girl, where are you?” the woman called out.

Kaitlin felt a tight pressure against her chest, the girl still shaking. A foreign source of comfort was better than nothing at all in the eyes of a child. Still she fought against the burning feelings growing inside, already threatening to send her over the edge in another transformation. She looked back at the girl who stared agape at Kaitlin's steadily glowing green eyes.

“That was really scary, but you're alright. That's your mom over there right? Go to her.”

The little girl muttered an intelligible mix of sound and glanced back up to where the man and Valerie were locked in an even grapple.

“Don't worry. We'll take care of it. Go.” Kaitlin said softly.

The young girl, hearing her mother's voice once more released Kaitlin and ran to the woman's outstretched arms that quickly swept her up as they made their way over to the far exit of the mall.

We'll take care of it. The words had escaped her lips in almost the same fashion as her body had moved before. A split-second of inaction was all it took for disaster to strike and she had acted to prevent it. Whatever happened after this, she could hold onto that at least.

A crunching crash of steel and shattering glass was heard from Valerie tossed into and landing within the small toy store two shops down from where the incident had started. The fuzzy plushies and soft figures had done nothing to cushion the blow and Valerie lay there on her back, wheezing hard as the two smaller henchmen found a place on either of her arms, pinning them down. Valerie roared a mighty, defiant cry, the veins of her arms pulsating in her strained efforts, but her prolonged fatigue now overwhelmed her. The huge leader was now approaching Valerie, cackling a deep-throated bass of a laugh as he walked over and squished his boot down hard over the space of her chest as if she was no more than a nagging insect to be eradicated.

Valerie's cry this time was one of true pain, and the leader was appearing to take delight in the slow, prolonged end of this unexpected interference. Time was short before other authorities would arrive, so he would make this quick. Pinned to the ground, Valerie struggled still, but soon even the might of Valerie's altered form soon ebbed away and began to degrade her nigh-unbreakable will.

Kaitlin watched this horror unfolding before her, and recalled the advice she had been issued earlier in the day after her impromptu transformation.

Focus on what you want to do.

Her energy, her feelings, indeed her very life itself were all for Kaitlin to control and wield towards her goals. In her mind's eye she saw her coworker begging to be rescued before her, the near-forgotten image of her late father, and envisioned alongside him the lifeless form of her step-mother now joined at his feet. She felt the paralyzing fear once more, but this time it's all-encompassing talons were forced out of the clutches of her mind. Kaitlin resolved to now take on an active part in the choices of her life. Conquering fear would give way to the courage she previously lacked, that which was needed right now to save someone dear to her. Instead of casting aside her seething anger and her stress they would become the tip of her spear aimed at eradicating such cruelty in the world.

The severity of the situation swirled with the fear inside of Kaitlin to a new mix coaxing her forward into action. Instead of the anger that had drove her transformations in the past, she instead found the roiling, billowing inferno heat of change tempered and controlled. The waves of transformation passed over her without consuming her entirely, instead drawing her fully in to its elevating powers. The change from girl to monstrous wolf took place the quickest it ever had, and within the span of a minute Kaitlin charged on four powerful, lithe limbs as a furious ball of fur and fury heading to do what Valerie could not accomplish.

*******

Kaitlin leapt upon the thug, crashing into him and landing back on the ground on all fours. The giant criminal attempted to grab Kaitlin, but she deftly leaped away before pinning him once more. Her upper lip scrunched back to flash her terrifying fangs in a menacing snarl. Beyond the use of human words, the gesture sufficiently carried her unwavering intent. Seeing their leader on the ground, the two henchmen grabbed the containers stuffed with jewels and raced as quickly as possible to make a hasty exit. Kaitlin cast a glowering eye towards them, then huffed a deep, gruff tone.

Small-fry. They hadn't harmed her step-mother the way HE had.

Her hackles were raised on end making her already towering figure fill out even further. Kaitlin's claws raked across the ground with each step and from her maw dripped long strands of saliva. Right as she was about to sink down, jaws opened to deal a final, crushing strike against the man's throat, she felt her neck immobilized. Kaitlin gnashed her teeth, then saw Valerie's glowing green eyes while she heaved a heavy breath over the wolven form of her stepdaughter. A cacophony of sirens and alarms were blaring through the mall, but Kaitlin could only think of the leader and how he had nearly taken away something that was important to her.

Kaitlin growled in frustration, stomping down hard on the huge arm of the thug. The engorged muscles tensed to their breaking point, threatening to snap beneath the force of her massive paw.

“We need to go. Now!” Valerie shouted in Kaitlin's face, forcing her head to turn and see the small line of officers approaching from the far end of the mall. Kaitlin lifted her paw off the man's arm and instead batted him across the face, drawing a series of bloody furrows and knocking him unconscious. The last sight Kaitlin was able to make out was the swarm of officers dragging out yards and yards of thickened chains to bind around the fallen titan.

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The two made their way back to the abandoned warehouse from earlier, finally getting a moment to catch their breath away from all of the chaos that had erupted throughout the town after the incident. Beside Valerie, the Gammawolf lay nearly asleep. Valerie had since changed back to her human shape. She stirred the creature to fix a haunting green eye back upon her with a stroke of her hand across its fur. It would still take time before its tight control would unravel once more and allow the Kaitlin she knew to resurface again. Valerie knew that Kaitlin had never invoked the creature as totally as she had in that moment, and all for the sake of saving her. If Kaitlin hadn't done what she had, then she wouldn't be here right now.

“Thank you for all that you did to protect her. I'm surprised that you came out to help back there as quickly as you did. Usually you are more....how should I say, reluctant? With such fury ruling over you, I need to know.....why did you help me, another of the kind like you that had bound you to her?”

The wolf's words came in slow, chunked speech, deep, focused breathing punctuating the spaces between its low baritone.

“Care.....Kaitlin......Kaitlin....care....Valerie....Together....family.....Protect.....without......Kaitlin.....nor....I....survive.”

The Gammawolf's speech had improved since she had last heard the wolf utter words. The last time it had spoken it had only managed to express a few choice words questioning lineage and potential canine parentage. Now it's thoughts were coming more coherently, more through Kaitlin's own voice. As much as it had gone to influence her, perhaps the tide was now beginning to find an unsteady equilibrium.

Valerie's gaze softened and she folded her arms in front of her, amazed that even this creature cradling such immense fury could in its own way turn towards empathy and preservation. Valerie leaned in then and wrapped her arms around the wolf's shaggy neck, breathed in its hearty musk still tinged with flakes of concrete debris and closed her eyes, allowing sleep to pass over her in the assured company of her protector, although she would be caught dead saying that out loud. She needed to keep the image for Kaitlin's sake, but she had taken her first step today towards changing that. A first step and an important one too.

Valerie stifled back a chuckle. The Gammawolf once more loomed a large, wild eye towards her, but said nothing more.

“The way you talk now. It reminds me of when Kaitlin was still much smaller. Back then things were simpler. The pain of what had happened to her father was still kept far away from her. It destroys a person, losing someone like that. I don't know if you can understand something like that. You exist within her, but people....they exist within other people too, so when you lose someone you lose a part of yourself along the way too. I sometimes wonder if I made the right choice keeping that away from so long, but I couldn't take that smile away from her. You can't take a smile away from a girl like that. I may not have been her biological mother, but still I only ever wished the best for her as any parent would want.

“Pain...loss....I...can...feel...can...know....I....am......not....Kaitlin....I....share.....this....body....with....her...I....do.....not....want...loss....either.”

To the Gammawolf's surprise, Valerie laughed again. “I suppose then if you are separate that you should have your own name rather than the “wolf inside”. What do you think about something like Green?” Valerie stated suddenly, hopeful for the potential of a possible path of coexistence between the Gammawolf and her step-daughter.

The Gammawolf was silent, resigning itself from any further comment that would perpetuate this newfound feeling of irritation.

“Baby steps for now I suppose. Well Green, if you're feeling up for it, let's head home.” The two lifted the latch of the metal shutter, and walked within the darkness of night back towards home.

*******

Standing in the lit doorway, a few nighttime insects buzzing about the fluorescent bulb, Brynhilde tapped a foot, standing in a tank top and patterned PJ bottoms of bunnies nibbling varied colored bunches of grass.

“I watched the news coverage earlier today. I figured it was you two caught up in that little pit of hell today. Don't worry, you got out before anyone could get any good pictures of the whole thing, and it seems like the criminals that were there had short-circuited the security feed beforehand, so no videos to worry about. I'm so glad you're both alright.”

“Yes, we're both ok. Green, can you finish letting Kaitlin come back? As much as I would enjoy the luxury of hoisting several hundred pounds of wolfy fuzz up the steps, I think having her back to human form would be easier.”

The Gammawolf was reluctant to respond to the unwelcome name again, but indeed the day's events had exhausted it past the point of maintaining its form for much longer. Its large head rested forward against Brynhilde's arms as the changes began to ease back and the human form of Kaitlin began to emerge once more.

When enough of the change had retreated, Brynhilde and Valerie helped lift their step-daughter to her room and laid her in her bed. Valerie leaned on Bryn's arm, smiling with an unaccustomed glint of pride shining in her eyes.

“What's got you in such a good mood?” Bryn asked, trailing her fingers down through the still tense, knotted muscles of her back.

“It wasn't just me who solved what happened out there Bryn. She played as much a part as me, one even more important. She was there for me. And she'll be there for others too. With time, rest, and a little extra guidance who knows. Maybe she'll get to where we only dreamed we could reach.”

END

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Commission for . Was a joy working on this story for them and reminded me a great deal of something you might see in a DC/Marvel superhero comic. Who's your favorite comic book superhero and why? I'd love to hear in the comments below!

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