[center][@Zool][@Calle][@Saiyan][@Teyao][@Crusader Lord][@Zapdos][@Eviledd1984][/center]

To a wise observer, the first wave of attacks from the party on the Alphas would make it painfully clear: The Heroes from the Sky were severely outmatched.

[center][@Zool][@Crusader Lord][@Zapdos][/center]

The Alpha Male direwolf's reflexes were instantaneous.  It went from pouncing on Adam, paws and jaws mere inches from the Druid's face, to jumping into a 360 spin that evaded MacKensie's flurry of bolts.  The giant red-striped beast's attention was now locked onto the Ranger, slipping left and right effortlessly to dodge each shot MacKensie fired, snarling with utter contempt for the woman.  She couldn't hit it, but the distraction was enough that Adam could retreat without being harmed.

Yet, as soon as MacKensie stopped firing and turned to run, hand in hand with Adam, the beast struck out immediately with another lunge at the pair.  Once again it was inches from the Druid and Ranger, and would have undoubtedly snapped it's jaws onto MacKensie's shoulder, but out of nowhere came the stream of lightning.

Lillianna was the first to land any kind of hit on the Alpha Male, the lightning strikingly it directly.  It winced and recoiled slightly, pushed back a step.  The vast majority of typical damage from a magical lightning bolt was negated by the inately high magic resistance of the animal.  Barely a scratch, but it was stunned for long enough to allow it's prey to escape behind the party front-line.

[center][@Calle][@Zapdos][/center]

Fenna's charge was enough to make the Alpha Female direwolf pause her attack on Adam, and turn her canine gaze on the spear-wielding Ranger.  The direwolf reared up onto it's hind legs and whacked the tip of the spear away with a claw-strike.

Yes.  Claw-strike.  This direwolf was no ordinary wolf but a twisted Chimera of sorts.  It's body was longer than the other wolves, it's forked tongue that of a great lizard.  Before Fenna could recover, the beast advanced on her and grabbed the shaft of the spear with a clawed hand, so that Fenna couldn't get away, then yanked the Ranger toward itself and opened it's jaws.

Adam's vines took it by surprise and managed to coil around it's rear half, but the plant magic was not strong enough to hold the Alpha Female in place.  It shook itself easily from the trap, snapping the vines but left itself open for an attack...

[center][@Eviledd1984][/center]

The [i]Enchanted Gloves of Lesser Protection[/i] glowed momentarily and Joji's bite wound healed completely.  His skin sealed up without leaving a scratch, although the blood still covered his arm.

[center][@Zool][@Calle][@Saiyan][@Teyao][@Crusader Lord][@Zapdos][@Eviledd1984][/center]

One of the Lesser Direwolves fell to Arthur's powerful anchor attacks, but the last remaining one injured Clive, leaving the ex-farmer writhing on the ground with deep scratches and a bite wound before charging Lillianna and being killed by the flying halberd of the ghost.  Clive struggled to his feet, his shovel broken leaving him unarmed and injured.

[i][b]"ROOOOOAAARRRRR!!!"[/b][/i] was the distant promise of wrath once again.  Except this time, it was a little louder and little closer.

Perhaps more worryingly... it was no longer coming from the south.  The roar was now north-east of their position.

But there was more pressing matters to attend to right now, in the form of two extremely powerful, extremely angry direwolves.