When Ethan returned to his base, the werewolf girl was still there. Ethan walked inside and saw her pacing around the room, still in looking like a Golden Retriever. After dealing with Poltergeist, Ethan’s mood had elevated slightly, but he still had mixed feelings regarding his guest. It didn’t help that she might be a murderer too, but Ethan planned on settling that issue here and now.

  “Hey,” Ethan called out as he entered the factory.

  “You’re back!” she exclaimed and ran up to him. To an outsider, it would’ve looked like a pet happily greeting its master, but Ethan doubted the girl knew or care about her appearance at the moment. “Did you do it?! Is he… gone?”

  “I got him to back off,” Ethan replied as he headed towards the living room. “He shouldn’t bother you tonight, but I can’t promise he won’t try again later.”

  “You… You didn’t kill him?!” the girl asked incredulously. She sounded more shocked than angry, but Ethan kept his ear out for a change.

  “Nope,” was Ethan’s reply as he sat back on the coach.

  “But… why?!” Instead of anger, her shock turned into sadness, with a note of betrayal evident in her voice. Despite their rocky interactions, the she-wolf must have thought there was a sense of trust between the two. Even if they weren’t friends they could rely on each other as fellow outcasts, but she was now seeing that might not be the case.

  Ethan had that same feeling smashed countless times in the early days of Ebenezer’s enslavement, and it didn’t feel any better when he was on the other side of it. Still, the boy powered through and choked down his sympathy before it made him do anything foolish.

  “Never said I would,” Ethan replied nonchalantly. “I only said I’d take care of him, and I did.” Ethan was not going to kill someone for the sake of it. That was one of the lines he knew not to cross, even with Uncle Sunny giving him a free pass with Cotton. “If you want him dead that badly, kill him yourself. You shouldn’t try to get other people to do your dirty work.”

  “Bu-but… I-I-I c-can’t do… do that!” the lycanthrope stammered her way into a nervous mess. Ethan could tell she never killed anyone before. The way the cryptid danced around the topic of murder made it obvious. Yet the villain still felt the “grizzly murders” that Poltergeist talked about were connected to her in some way.

  “I-I can’t!” the she-wolf cried out again. “Y-You know this town! If they find out someone was murdered by a werewolf, they’ll go crazy.”

  “Then leave town,” Ethan suggested coldly. “I doubt your stalker would follow you.”

  “But… I’ve got nowhere else to go!”

  “So? You’ve been living as a stray dog just fine until that wannabe Hero showed up. You can do it again in another city.”

  “No!” the werewolf screamed with a surprising amount of panic in her voice. “It has to be here!”

  “Why?” Ethan didn’t raise his voice, but he did rise from his couch to stare the cryptid in her eyes. “Why specifically this city?” The lycnathrope seemingly realised she said too much and clammed up. She lay down on the floor and avoided Ethan’s gaze, as if the villain would suddenly forget she was there and think he owned a werewolf shaped rug.

  Naturally, Ethan wasn’t giving up, but rather than pry the information out of the cryptid, he decided to try a different approach.

  On his way here, the villain thought about what Poltergeist had said and how it connected to his werewolf guest. There was always the possibility that the murders and the cryptid weren’t connected, but Ethan had a feeling that wasn’t the case. And while he still doubted the girl had killed anyone, he could stll guess how they might be connected.

  Without another word, Ethan took out his phone and brought up the news articles detailing the deaths. When he found a few grizzly pictures, he turned over his phone to show the wolf girl. She was hesitant to look at first, but after realizing Ethan wouldn’t just leave her alone, the werewolf looked at the device.

  At first, the cryptid didn’t seem to realise what she was looking at. Ethan understood the confusion, because on first glance the pictures look like mangled cuts of meat. You might even think it you were looking at the contents of a butchery that someone dumped on the floor. Then you’d notice a few obviously human bits like a severed arm or the bottom of someone’s jeans, and suddenly you’d realize what you're looking at.

  Ethan watched the she-wolf’s eyes go wide in horror, and her body tense up. She might’ve gone pale if she were still human, but the villain could still see the terror in the creature’s canine visage.

  “This is why the hunter was after you,” Ethan explained, putting his phone away. “He thought you had something to do with these deaths.”

  “I-I didn’t…!” the werewolf spluttered.

  “I know you didn’t,” Ethan replied coolly. “Big Bad Werewolf, and you can barely rob a grocery store. No way in hell you did this. Still, something did, and if your stalker’s right, they’re in this city.” If the wolf girl’s eyes were wide before, they were trying to pop out of her skull now.

  Suddenly, the lycanthrope started throwing her head around the room like she was expecting a SWAT team to burst through the windows.

  “What are you doing?” Ethan asked. He tried to stay cool, but the werewolf girl’s abrupt panic was making him feel concerned.

  “I gotta get out of here,” she answered, though it was more like a muttered thought. “They’ve found me!”

  “Who’s they?” Ethan pressed, though he had a pretty good idea who the werewolf was talking about. While there were numerous ways to turn into a werewolf in their crazy world, the most common way was to be turned into one by someone else.

  “The people who turned me!” the she-wolf howled, confirming Ethan’s hypothesis.

  “Your pack?” Ethan guessed.

  “NO!” she snapped. She whirled her head towards Ethan to growl at him with an animalistic ferocity he’d never seen in her. “Not my pack! Never my pack!”

  “Okay, okay,” Ethan said placatingly. “I get it. You’re not with them.” He raised in a show of nonaggression, and the wolf girl quickly calmed down. She lowered her head in shame, and Ethan dropped his hands. While waiting for the cryptid to keep talking, Ethan took the moment to berate himself.

  ‘What the hell was that?!’ He screamed internally. ‘You should’ve thrown her ass out the moment she started growling at you! Not try to soothe her like she’s a kid having a tantrum! That’s the weak-willed bullshit Ebenezer would pull! Ethan Sun is supposed to be better than that!’

  Yet another reminder that Ethan was far from the villain he wanted to be. He really had to start being more cruel or else he’d really be stuck as a goody-two-shoes. But before the villain could consider removing the werewolf anyway, she finally spoke again.

  “I ran away from home,” the wolf-girl admitted. Ethan could tell this was the beginning of her backstory and clenched his fists to hold back his discomfort. The boy didn’t want to get more involved with the werewolf girl than he already was, lest he perform more heroics for her. But if there were going to be a pack of werewolves moving into the city, then Ethan needed to be ready for them.

  “I thought I could handle life on the streets…” she continued in a depressing tone. “I was wrong. I was starving most of the time… But I still didn’t want to go home, even when it looked like it was my only option. Then these… people took me in. I thought I was finally getting a break after everything. But…”

  “But they were secretly a pack of Werewolves, and they forced you to join them?” Ethan guessed.

  “Yes,” the girl spat the word out like it was a bug that flew into her mouth. She didn’t look at Ethan, but the boy could tell from her lowered head and hunched posture that there was far more to the story that she was keeping from him. The villain made sure to bite his lip to keep him from saying anything sympathetic, even as the compassion writhed in his gut, demanding to be let out.

  “They…” the werewolf said slowly. “They told me that they could help me… protect me. I believed them… I-I wanted to believe them… But they just wanted to use me. Just like everyone else. I was just-.”

  “Alright,” Ethan interrupted. The she-wolf was hitting way too close to home with her story, and the Wukong had to silence her before she drove his inner Nice Guy insane. “I get it. They’re bad people. Is there any specific reason they turned you, or were they just building their forces for something?”

  “The second one…” the girl muttered glumly. “I’m not that important to be singled out… I think they’re trying to take over the world.”

  “Seriously?” Ethan asked skeptically. Of all the goals for a bunch of oversized dogs to have, having the most cliché bad guy goal just sounded silly.

  “That or they want to make some kind of pro-werewolf country,” she added vaguely. “I don’t know. I stopped caring about what they said after a while.”

  “Right. Do you think they’d really come here? This isn’t the best place to be for anything abnormal.”

  “They might if they knew I was here.”

  “But why? You just said you weren’t anything special.”

  “You don’t know them like I do,” the werewolf said with a tired sigh. “These guys worship pack mentality like it's a religion. Nobody can stray from the pack for any reason. The moment they realized I left, they’d be hunting me down. I thought I’d be safe here with the Crusaders and the Normalists as cover, but I was wrong again…”

  “We still don’t know if it’s really them,” Ethan offered. “It could be a different monster entirely.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” the werewolf scoffed.

  “Me neither,” Ethan agreed darkly. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t like it. The last thing the villain wanted was for people to hear that he drove out a pack of werewolves. But the danger was too great to ignore, especially if his guest was their target. If werewolf noses were as keen as movies made them seem, they’d be all over him and his base, looking for her. “Do you know how many werewolves are in that pack?”

  “A handful, I think,” the wolf girl answered while looking at Ethan curiously.

  “Define 'Handful’,” Ethan ordered with an annoyed tone.

  “I-I don’t know, five or six? They didn’t put me through a meet and greet when I first turned.”

  “So you don’t know how many there are?”

  “No, but I know there aren’t a lot.” She picked herself up and stared at Ethan cautiously. She seemed to know where this was going, and while Ethan didn’t want to do anymore heroics for her, he didn’t see a reason to smash her hopes. “They talked about “rebuilding” and stuff. I’m guessing they tried to conquer the world before and got wiped out.”

  “So they have limited people and resources,” Ethan surmised. “But that’s still just a guess. We’re going to have to find them to see for ourselves.”

  “We?” the girl asked hesitantly.

  “Yes,” Ethan admitted begrudgingly. “Since you're already here, I doubt those werewolves are going to leave me alone, regardless if I help you or not. Besides, I don’t want to deal with monsters anymore than I have to, so I’d rather nip this problem in the bud.”

  “Thank you! Thank you so much!” The werewolf girl was practically jumping for joy as her upbeat energy returned. Her tail started wagging with such force that it made her hind legs wiggle uncontrollably. “I owe you big time for this!”

  “You better believe it!” Ethan snarled. The wolf-girl’s happiness gave the boy a complicated feeling of satisfaction and self-loathing. The moment he saw an opportunity to act villainously, he jumped on it like it was the last cookie available. “I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my heart. You owe me, and I expect to be paid back in full. Are we clear?”

  “Yes!” the girl replied, her eagerness not diminished despite Ethan’s best efforts. “I won’t forget this! I promise! I pay you back no matter what it takes!”

  “Good…” was all Ethan could say. He’d been hoping to dampen her enthusiasm with his imposed debt, maybe even make her scared. Instead, it made the girl even happier somehow. “We’ll start looking tomor--tonight,” Ethan added while checking his phone and saw it was now 2 A.M. “I need to rest, so we’ll start our search later.”

  “Alright,” the she-wolf agreed. “Um… is it okay if I… stay here until we start? I don’t want to wander around town if they’re here…”

  “Whatever,” Ethan said as he began walking up to the office bedroom. “Just don’t bug me while I’m sleeping.”

  While the villain didn’t like the idea of a stranger having free rein of his place, there wasn’t much worth protecting in the old factory. Even if the werewolf broke something like his game consoles, Ethan could always just steal another one.

  The only thing of any value was the Cleaner’s computer; there was still more information to get out of it, so he had to make sure that it was protected. That was why Ethan was heading to the office to sleep. Usually, he slept on the couch, but now he’d have to take the Cleaner’s old room to safeguard the computer.

  When Ethan entered the refurbished room, he was quick to lock the door. While he doubted the she-wolf would try anything, Ethan didn’t want her bothering him while he was reporting to Uncle Sunny. The rude wake up call would be bad enough, but if the werewolf somehow realized he could talk to the Monkey King in his dreams, he may have to rethink about keeping her alive.

  Making himself comfy on the old bed, Ethan closed his eyes and went to sleep. When he opened his eyes a moment later, Ethan was back on Mt. Huaguo.

  “Greetings, Ebenezer,” said a familiar voice. Ethan looked over to see a male Wukong sitting next to his usual spawn point.

  “Hey, Lucien,” the boy greeted the older man, suppressing the jolt of fear he felt when he heard his civilian name. “How’ve you been?”

  Ethan never told the other Wukong about his new name, and that was by design. He still didn’t want his extended family finding out about his villainous goals. Whenever he stopped by, he always had his hood down and mask off. His villain costume was casual enough that it wouldn’t rouse anyone’s suspicions, but wearing a mask was a dead giveaway.

  Things hadn’t changed much on Flower Fruit Mountain, much to Ethan’s relief. Even with Sun Wukong’s new conditions, things were still pleasant around the Wukings’ ancestral home. His cousins still treated him the same way they always did, but Ethan still felt uncomfortable around them. The boy couldn’t stay near his cousins very long; every second in their impossibly friendly presence is a second he could let something slip and turn them all against him.

  Ethan walked with Lucien to Uncle Sunny’s cove. Ethan had hoped neither of them would speak to each other, but Lucien apparently wanted to catch up.

  “So how have things been?” the older wukong asked suddenly.

  “Could be better, but could be worse,” Ethan answered vaguely.

  “Are things… better at home?” Lucien asked cautiously. Ethan wondered what he meant by that, but quickly put two and two together. While the older Wukong didn’t know about Ethan Sun’s existance, he knew about Ebenezer’s terrible situation.

  And in truth, things were… fine. Things hadn’t improved since his suspension, but they haven’t gotten worse. Instead, home affairs remained in this odd state of stagnation.

  Naturally, Principal Ward told Menelaus about Ebenezer’s new schedule. She spun it out to seem like an opportunity to regain the scholastic ground he lost with his suspension, and even get ahead with that letter of recommendation.

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  Ethan still remembered the spiel Principal Wade gave his family about their arrangement. He had to admit, the lady had done a good job at selling it, she didn’t lie about what Ebenezer was doing mbut managed to spin it like some sort of once in a lifetime second chance program. If Ethan didn’t know it was originally an extended punishment, he might’ve believed it too. Wade missed her calling as a snake oil salesman.

  But, as always, Menelaus wasn’t happy. Why did Ebenezer’s deal anger his father? Ethan didn’t know, and doubted Menelaus knew himself. Nothing about Principal Wade’s pitch gave away the true nature of the deal, but Menelaus somehow found a way to hate it. Maybe he could sense something was off about it, but he couldn’t tell what, so he just acted like he had a reason to be mad.

  “No son of mine needs handouts,” is what he said when the Principal left. But that was all he said. He didn’t threaten Ebenezer or punish him, probably because while the older man was suspicious, he had no proof or any tangible reason to be angry, so he didn’t lash out. He still made Ebenezer do all the household chores, which just felt needlessly cruel.

  ‘Then again,’ Ethan thought sardonically. ‘What’s dear old Dad going to do with himself if he can’t be an asshole?’ As Ethan, the boy could see his father’s actions in a new light, and it didn’t flatter him. The constant stream of punishments were looking less like the actions of harsh but fair man and looking more like a child lashing out at anything that upsets him.

  Ethan shook his head to put thoughts of home out of his mind, but then he remembered that Lucien was checking up on him, so he answered quickly.

  “Still shitty,” Ethan admitted with a shrug. “But I’m better off than I was last month.” Lucien nodded with a sad smile.

  “You can always come here if it gets to be too much, you know?” he placed a fatherly hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and the boy had to suppress the urge to smack it away. Ethan understood it was meant to be a comforting gesture, but that didn’t stop his instincts from screaming that it was a trap.

  “I know,” Ethan said calmly, doing his best not to squirm as Lucien kept his hand on his shoulder. “But if I come here to escape my problems, I’ll never leave. I want to at least try and make things work out there in the world before coming here.”

  “I understand,” Lucien said sagely as he finally removed his hand. By now, they had made it to Sun Wukong’s cove, and Ethan bid Lucien farewell. Entering the place, Ethan found Uncle Sunny already off his lounge and waiting for him.

  “Good evening, Ethan,” the Monkey King greeted. “Having a late night?”

  “Yeah,” Ethan replied with a groan as he rolled his shoulders. “I got roped into helping a werewolf fight off some wanna be Hero. And then found out her pack is probably in town, so now I have to hunt them down.” The boy knew Uncle Sunny would want more details, so he told the Elder Wukong everything that happened in the past few hours while he stretched.

  “Sounds like you’ll be busy,” Sun Wukong stated, tactfully not mentioning Ethan had saved someone again. “Should I not expect to see you again later today?”

  “I don’t know,” Ethan replied as he took out his staff. “I’m still not entirely sure I’m dealing with werewolves, so we’ll just be looking around at first. What happens after depends on what we find.”

  Despite Uncle Sunny demanding nightly reports about Ethan’s activities, the boy had a bit of leeway he could work with. Ethan didn’t get in trouble that Sunday night when he skipped training while in his fugue state. Uncle Sunny understood his descendant needed time to process what he did, so there were no consequences for skipping that particular day.

  And there was room for Ethan to skip other days, so long as he had a good reason and didn’t do it too often. He was able to skip training the night of his bank heist because he had to make sure he wasn’t being followed by Neo Spectrum.

  While Uncle Sunny looked like he was taking a firmer hand, Ethan still had relative freedom to do what he wanted. Though the villain made sure to tread carefully around his ancestor’s boundaries. Lenient he may be, Ethan wasn’t going to test his patience and break the only lifeline he had.

  “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Sun Wukong said easily. “Now, are you ready to begin?”

  “Yeah, but can I make a request?”

  “Of course. Is there something specific you want me to show you?” In response, Ethan raised his staff aloft and then snapped it in half with the ease of breaking a pretzel stick. The two halves of the weapon shrank down to the size of drumsticks, and the villain faced his mentor holding two golden batons.

  “Can you teach me how to fight with two sticks?” The Monkey King smiled proudly at his protege and nodded.

  “I was wondering when you would discover that abillity,” the first Wukong chuckled. He began twirling his own rod at an incredible speed. Ethan wasn’t sure what he was doing, but when Sun Wukong stopped twirling, six more staffs had been planted into the stone floor next to him.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Uncle Sunny said as he took one of the extra staffs in his hand.

  Ethan eagerly charged in and began his training. And almost immediately, he was beaten to a pulp. While Ethan didn’t expect to be a sudden master at twin stick combat, he wasn’t expecting to be destroyed by his ancestor. Sure, it was difficult to learn a new fighting style, but all the progress Ethan made in martial arts seemingly disappeared as Uncle Sunny easily defeated him. Ethan felt like a baby wielding a couple of rattles compared to the expertise of his teacher.

  Moments later, Ethan found himself lying on the cave floor, bruised and breathing heavily.

  “Well, that sucked,” he stated with a wheeze.

  “The first time is rarely pleasant,” Uncle Sunny chuckled.

  “The first time I used that stick-breaking power, I managed to beat up Poltergeist with it,” Ethan countered as he forced himself to his feet.

  “In a surprise attack,” Uncle Sunny added knowingly. “Luck is fantastic when it’s on your side, but it can never be truly counted on. Eventually, tides will shift, and luck will be your enemy.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Ethan groaned. When he was standing, Ethan dusted himself and looked at his Progenitor, only to see Uncle Sunny staring at him curiously. “What?”

  “When you talked about investigating tonight, you said “we’ll just be looking”... Who’s going with you?”

  “The werewolf girl,” Ethan answered, not sure where Uncle Sunny was going with this. “I need her help to find the others.”

  “And this girl is she… a partner in crime?”

  “No,” Ethan replied, his tone growing uncomfortable. If this conversation was going where Ethan feared it was, he’d be bolting out of the cave as if cops with arrest warrants showed up. The boy doubted that his interactions with the wolf-girl could be taken in a romantic light, but people always assumed that a boy and a girl talking alone meant something more.

  “But she’s like you,” the Monkey King added. “A lost soul with nowhere to go.”

  “Uncle Sunny, where are you going with this?” the villain asked cautiously.

  “I simply want you to keep in mind that you need allies, if not friends,” Sun Wukong said sagely. “There is only so much we can do alone.”

  “I’ve been managing so far,” Ethan replied, trying not to sound defensive. “Not that I had much of a choice before.”

  “You have a choice now.” Ethan didn’t have a way to respond to that, so he simply said he’d think about it and left. The idea of trusting people with his goals was not a pleasant one. After years of being used and backstabbed as Ebenezer, Ethan wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to him. The she-wolf seemed genuine, but something could change, and she could suddenly see the Wukong as an obstacle that needed to be removed.

  But regardless of Ethan’s feelings on the matter, the boy was sure Sun Wukong would continue to pester him about finding allies. Maybe Ethan could placate him by saying he and the wolf girl would remain in touch, which would be technically true, as Ethan would want to know where she is so he can cash in on that favor if needed. The villain would also have to not mention said favor to the Monkey King, as Ethan knew full well that wasn’t what the ancestor was looking for.

  ‘Still have no idea what to use the favor for,’ the boy thought. ‘Having a werewolf in my back pocket should be a good thing, but I have no idea what she’s capable of. She clearly doesn’t have the stomach for violence, so that’s out…’ Ethan shook his head as he labeled all of those thoughts as “later problems”. Right now, he may or may not have a pack of werewolves to deal with, so he needs to focus on them.

  Ethan opened his eyes and returned to his factory base. He saw the office/bedroom was untouched, which was expected but still nice to see. However, his contentment over his undisturbed rest was broken when he heard the sound of sizzling, and he caught the faintest scent of smoke in the air.

  ‘Is something burning?!’ Ethan thought in a panic. ‘Did that crazy werewolf set my hideout on fire?!’ Without thinking, Ethan leapt out of the still broken window and landed on the factory floor with far more grace than the Cleaner did. The villain turned his head around to assess the damage and find the dog-girl so he could strangle her, but froze at what he saw.

  Instead of a blaze, Ethan saw a girl in the kitchen area. She had a messy mane of blonde hair and wore a shabby t-shirt, jeans, and worn sneakers. Her clothes weren’t quite rags, but it wouldn’t be long before they were damaged beyond that point.

  When the mysterious girl heard Ethan fall, she turned around to face him. She had blue eyes and a wide smile on her face. Ethan saw that she was currently using the stove and dutifully cooking something in a pan.

  “Morning!” she greeted in a familiar voice. “I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to your kitchen. It’s been so long since I had cooked food, I just couldn’t resist!”

  “You’re the werewolf,” Ethan stated. This girl and his unwanted guest had to be the same person. The voice and hair were enough of a giveaway, but Ethan had to be sure. If people kept finding and breaking into his base, then that was a problem that needed an immediate solutiion.

  “Oh!” the girl squeaked in surprise and then looked down at herself as if she just noticed she was on two legs. “Yeah, this is my human form. And my name’s Zoe, by the way.”

  “Zoe…” Ethan repeated as if the girl’s name was an eldritch incantation he could barely pronounce. Hearing that a werewolf had such a normal-sounding name felt wrong for some reason.

  “Yeah, Zoe the werewolf,” the girl said sardonically as she turned back to her cooking. “Is Ethan your real name, or is it some kind of alias?”

  “It’s the only name that matters right now,” the villain replied.

  “Whatever you say,” Zoe said patronisingly. Ethan had half a mind to throw her off the stove for that, but was distracted by the girl gesturing to the counter where a plate of food rested. “I went ahead and made you something as thanks for letting me stay here. It’s nothing fancy, I’m not much of a cook, but it should do.”

  The plate held scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast. A simple breakfast, as Zoe claimed, but it was still better than what Ethan could make. Despite the kitchen being fully furbished, the villain had never made muchuse of it. He kept the fridge stocked with essentials, but whenever he needed to eat, he’d always stick with quick things like frozen food and sandwiches. The entire month he stayed in the factory, Ethan used the stove maybe once or twice.

  “Thanks,” was all Ethan said as he grabbed his plate and headed to the living area. There was a small table next to the kitchen area meant to eat food on, but the Wukong would rather eat on the couch so he could check the news. Besides, the table only had one chair. The Cleaner, apparently, was under no illusion that he’d ever have company to eat with. Ethan would let Zoe use it when she was done cooking.

  When the villain sat down and placed his plate on the crate he used to replace the coffee table, he was about to remove his mask, but stopped himself. While Ethan e and Zoe were on good terms now, that didn’t mean he trusted her to see his face. If, for some reason, the two of them become enemies in the future, Ethan would rather not have her know what he looked like under the mask.

  Still, he had to eat, and he’d rather not go up the stairs just to eat in the office. Not only would it be tedious, but it would make other dealings with Zoe more awkward. Even if she understood Ethan’s caution (And if she didn’t, she better not voice her complaints lest she wants to test Ethan’s goodwill), an open show of distrust like that would dampen the mood, and it was too early for Ethan to deal with that.

  Thinking fast, the villain hunched over, pulled up his mask just enough to show his face, and then took out his phone. Using the camera app as a mirror, Ethan started shapeshifting his face. He changed the size and shape of his nose, eyes, lips, and even shifted the bones in his skull to give himself a different head shape.

  Ethan didn’t go crazy; he didn’t want to look like some abomination a bored gamer made in character creation. The goal was to make enough small changes that he’d look like a completely different person. That way, if Zoe ever turned against him, Ethan wouldn’t have to worry about a werewolf attacking Ebenezer in broad daylight.

  After a few minutes, Ethan stared at his new face and was pleased by the result. It was different from Ebenezer and still a natural-looking face a teenager would have. Though just to be on the safe side, he made his skin and hair color a bit darker and changed his eyes from blue to green.

  ‘That ought to do it,’ Ethan thought as he fully removed his hood and mask. Finally relaxing, Ethan turned on the TV and began eating. As Zoe said, the meal wasn’t five-star quality, but it was good enough. Though, in fairness, Ethan was the kind of teenager who could constantly eat frozen and processed foods without complaint.

  Switching to the news, Ethan kept his eye out for any stories regarding Exalted Industries’ warehouse. The villain had little hope that the story would turn out the way he wanted it to, but he might as well check on it.

  “In today’s news,” began the anchorman. “An individual in a white bodysuit has been reported walking the streets at night.” A blurry picture of Poltergeist walking down a dark street appeared on screen next to the man’s head. “His name, intentions, and status have not been confirmed, but this individual is believed to be Gifted. People are advised to stay away from this individual if they encounter him on the street.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or scream. On one hand, it meant Poltergeist’s dreams of being famous were far down the road, which Ethan found amusing. But it also meant that any sabotage the would-be Hero could throw at Ethan would be ineffectual at best.

  Not to mention these assholes were giving Poltergeist the treatment they should’ve been giving Ethan from the get-go! Why was Poltergeist being treated like a threat, but Ethan was seen as some kid doing community service?!

  “I fucking hate these people,” Ethan grumbled as the news switched to commentary from the locals.

  “We don’t need another freak on the streets!” an angry trucker shouted into the mic.

  “I don’t my kids playing on the streets with that guy walking around,” a housewife sniffed.

  “If he thinks he’s some kind of Hero he should go back to wherever he came from and play pretend there,” a businessman scoffed.

  Most of them were loud and angry cries of adversity. The people didn’t want Poltergeist around and didn’t care what his game was. Some assumed that the white-clad man was another villain out to cause more trouble. Others guessed correctly that he was a would-be Hero, but the way they talked about him, they considered that just as bad.

  “Is that the guy who was hunting me?” Zoe asked. She walked to the living room area with her own plate of food. Despite himself, Ethan scooched over to the far side of the couch to make room for the werewolf girl. Zoe sat down without a care in the world and joined Ethan for breakfast and the morning news.

  “Yeah,” Ethan replied casually. “He’s some kind of self-proclaimed Hero. Calls himself Poltergeist.” While Ethan kept on a mask of relaxed neutrality, Zoe’s proximity was bothering him in a way he never had to deal with before. Ethan had always been alone in one way or another, so another person casually tampering with his space was making him uncomfortable. And the fact that it was a pretty girl doing it somehow made it worse.

  ‘Now is not the time for my hormones to go out of control,’ Ethan thought, mortified. ‘A villain doesn’t fall to pieces over a pretty girl being next to him!’

  “Should a Hero really name himself after a ghost?” Zoe asked as she started scarfing down her eggs.

  “Maybe he was going for a Halloween theme,” Ethan suggested stiffly. He finished the rest of his breakfast and tried to focus on the news to take his mind off his houseguest. It actually worked as the news story Ethan was waiting for came up.

  “Last night, a warehouse belonging to Exalted Industries had mysteriously exploded,” a reporter stated as she stood in front of the wreckage of said storehouse. “Exalted Industries is refusing to comment on what happened, but reports say there have been no casualties.”

  “Well, good for them,” Ethan growled as he shut the TV off. He knew what to expect, yet that didn’t stop him from getting annoyed. But instead of bursting in rage like last time, the villain found himself feeling exhausted. As if he just ran a marathon a few seconds ago at full sprint.

  This whole ordeal was getting tiring. A person could only take so many failures before giving up, and while Ethan was not yet at that point, it was hard not to get disheartened. Was the town truly determined to treat him like a hero, no matter what he did? Was there some kind of conspiracy that was forcing people to act like Ethan was some paragon of justice even when he committed crimes?!

  That idea sounded ridiculous, but at this point, the villain couldn’t disregard anything. That’d be just like this town to spawn a shadowy cabal that dedicated itself to ruining Ethan’s life.

  “Did you blow up a warehouse?” Zoe asked, snapping Ethan out of his downward spiral.

  “Technically no,” Ethan answered. “I helped make it happen, though.”

  “Wow. And they're not saying anything?”

  “Oh, don’t get me started on that,” Ethan groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Alright…” Zoe pointedly avoided looking at Ethan by staring at her plate. A second later she snapped her head back to the villain with a new question. “So, when should we start looking for the pack?”

  “We’ll start at 10 pm,” Ethan responded. “That’s when the city will start sleeping, and we can search without people bothering us.”

  “Right!” Zoe said eagerly. She had a big smile on her face, which faltered as she looked at the window and saw the early morning sunshine. “So… what do we do until then?”

  “We can start planning,” Ethan answered as he stood from the couch. He took out his phone and started looking up lycanthrope defenses. “Use the time we have to come up with ideas on how to deal with werewolves in case we find them. Like, what can you tell me about their weaknesses? Are any of those Werewolf myths even true?”

  “It depends on what type of werewolf you're dealing with,” Zoe replied without hesitation.

  “There are different types of werewolves?” Ethan asked with equal parts disbelief and dread. Something told him that this pack wouldn’t be made of only one type of wolfman.

  “Yeah,” Zoe said, and she stood up too. “Take me for instance. I’m…” She trailed off, her face scrunching up as she suddenly couldn’t get the words out. Was she having second thoughts about telling her her weaknesses? She chose one hell of a time to get cold feet.

  Yes, Ethan was aware that he couldn’t complain too much since he didn’t fully trust Zoe either. But Ethan needed to know how to fight against werewolves, and if Zoe couldn’t give him what he needed, then he wasn’t going to risk his life helping her.

  “I’m a Werepuppy,” Zoe said begrudgingly.

  “…Werepuppy?” Ethan repeated slowly.

  “Yes,” Zoe groaned out. Clearly, it wasn’t a lack of trust that held her tongue but embarrassment. “I’m meant to be a scout. Someone that can blend into society and gather intel for the pack.”

  “So it wasn’t a coincidence that you can look like a Golden Retriever.”

  “No, that was part of the package. I’m supposed to be able to pose as a stray dog or someone’s pet and listen in on people when they talk around me. I also have better hearing than normal werewolves. To make it easier for me to listen in on intel.”

  “But if someone hit you with something like a flashbang, you’d be down for the count, right?”

  “Yeah!” Zoe nodded cheerfully, not realising she just handed out her main weakness to a villain.

  “That’s good to know, but I doubt your old group is going to be filled with nothing but Werepuppies. Do you know the other types and their weaknesses?”

  “No…” Zoe admitted sadly.

  “Fantastic,” Ethan replied sardonically. “We’re going to have to rely on general weaknesses, then.”

  Once more brought up his phone and began looking up all the methods that are supposed to beat werewolves. Ethan ran each by Zoe to see what was real, what wasn’t, and what affected the creatures in ways the Wukong never expected. Eventually, the two of them were able to cobble together a game plan that would work with a good amount of luck. All they needed now was materials and to actually find these monsters.