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Spiritual Age Chapter four by Digitalpotato

The semester was beginning to come to a close, and summer was coming. Instead of tensing over the incoming finals or making elaborate plans about employment or travel somewhere or else, Peter simply relaxed.

Despite what he was told back in the UK, it wasn't hard to be a British Were-lion in America. If anything it just meant you'd be seen as more exotic. Almost everyone thought that American therianthropes in the more "wild lands" were more territorial, forming packs of tightly-knit werewolves and coyotes and chasing anyone out.

That couldn't have been further from the truth. Not only were there loads of therianthrope communities in these so-called "Wild lands", but they were surprisingly inviting, too. It was for that reason Peter was strongly considering just hanging out in America over the summer.

Most of the therianthropes appeared to be were-coyotes, who usually were rather solitary, only hanging around small groups. They weren't always territorial to chase out other therianthropes who would head to the so-called wild-lands. (Though most people referred to central United States as "Flyover country".) It was almost a change of pace - back home, Peter remembered having to constantly show his worth to groups of therianthropes from all over the world just because almost everyone wanted the British Isles.

There didn't seem to be as much of a territorial-shortage in America as there was in the British Isles. It was like what his Swiss friend told him of Russia, without people sociopathically trying to screw everybody over. Best just leave them to fail at DotA 2.

In fact, he was just talking to his friend right now. It was somewhat surprising that he was able to get clear voice chat using the fail university wi-fi. Video would lag way too much, unfortunately.

"...So do you think you can visit out here in the summer?" his friend asked.

"Easily Ben," Peter responded, "Though the therianthropic communities are always nice. Kind of unusual given that the normal people out here are complete assholes. Not nearly as bad as Russians, though."

"Oh my god, fucking Russians...almost all the time I try to go hunting and there's a Russian, he tries to use a fucking hunting rifle and shoots all the animals around, says they're all his, and then leaves half the bodies around. At least you got those Indian Coyotes-oh wait, we're supposed to call them Native Americans, right?"

"They don't even call themselves Native Americans," Peter said, "It's like in Europe."

Therians usually didn't refer to themselves as a race - they always would call each other 'wolf', 'coyote', 'lion' or whatever their species was.

"Cept for those holier than thous who go 'I am a Loup-Garou, not a werewolf' or 'I am a lycanthrope, not a werewolf'." Ben even made fake French and Greek accents as he said those. He always laughed at those.

"Well, you going to go hunt or admire your ursine butt?"

"Har har," Ben skyped back.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me. There was some weird disappearance out here. Evidently they think it may have been occult-related. Alls I know was, I saw some kind of weird spirit thingies outside another dorm next door."

"They got people investigating it like ghost-hunters?"

"Yep. Shame I was too busy. I'd love to find some kind of occult thing out here. Everyone out here is so boring. The were-coyotes are all busy doing their own things, there's nobody even trying to do stuff like tarot fortunes or whatever. Worst of all, nobody even has any Marmite out here."

"You and your marmite," Ben sighed, "you would think given the shit Americans eat that they would smear that on everything, too."

"It does make cow taste better...at least there are no cows out here with mad cow disease."

"That's always a good thing."

They chatted for a little while, before it was finally time to hang up. Ben lived in Switzerland after all, and Peter was smack dab in the middle of America. Drastic time differences, and Ben wasn't exactly a nocturnal type. Didn't want to keep Ben up too late, it's easier to wake up a Sleeping Beauty than it is to wake up a tired Werebear.

Peter relaxed for a bit, before checking his email. In addition to the standard spam such as reminding him about comments he got replied to on YouTube, deals about STEAM games he didn't want, there were some campus announcements. Peter didn't bother to click most spam messages, but campus announcements were different.

The first announcement was talking about how there was a missing student and that if anyone knew anything about someone named "Journey McBlack", that they should contact the Campus police or police department. The second one was also voicing suspicions of occult activity on a "normal campus".

Peter still had to laugh at a normal campus. If they really only catered to "normal people", then they did a terrible job. He was a British werelion and they didn't even bother to check. Even if he never transformed in front of people, he thought people would have noticed his thicker hair or the fact that he could outrun half the people on the football team. (Although the football team sucked, anyways.)

Maybe normal people were just that easy to fool. Peter read more about the announcement regarding occult activities. Given that the local therianthropes kept to themselves, he'd be dying to meet some of these. Anything to get rid of this boredom.

When he read about it, it was mentioned that a guest would be giving a lecture on the campus about 'occult safety purposes'. Said guest was someone named Eileen from the twentieth house, the largest cabal of mages in the world. Great, those guys.

Cabals such as the Twentieth House were surprisingly racist. They only accepted humans into their numbers, and only humans. Never people like Therianthropes or vampires, many cabals were made to hunt them. Even if the Twentieth House claimed to be different and more 'modern', Peter didn't trust them any further than he could throw them.

Despite this, he was so bored enough he thought it wouldn't have hurt to go to this 'lecture' anyways. It was just that boring out here. At least he could have snark around at the kinds of false statements that would be made by that representative.

A few days later, Peter had walked into that large lecture hall where said 'lecture' was being held. They spared no 'expense', they let this person speak in the largest classroom on campus. And enough people had come in you would have thought this was a freshman class with several hundred people in it.

Peter sat near the back and closest to the door. It was normally where the stoners sat, and the people who brought their laptops so they could attach them to the chargers on the wall. He could still see who the person was up front, or rather, people up front.

So many wizards loved to dress as silly and weirdly as they could, almost like they were trying to cosplay from some kind of anime like Fairy Tail. Peter didn't even know who this person was, but he could tell that she must have been some kind of wizard. Almost nobody would dare dress like some kind of stereotypical biker chick.

The person sitting up front, checking her watch had her hair parted to one side, with literally a large blotch of it dyed a silly violet colour. Tattoos ran up and down her exposed arms, and she wore a black denim vest with tight jeans. All she needed was to be wearing a biker helmet or riding on a motorcycle and she would have looked straight out of the hell's angels.

Accompanying her looked to be two bodyguards, who thankfully didn't dress as oddly, but goodness were they walking stereotypes. People in business suits and sunglasses, just calmly sitting on both her sides. It looked like those movies where secret service types were guarding an important person such as a prime minister's daughter. How stereotypical.

After a few minutes, the woman stood up and walked to the microphone that was put on the podium in front of her. People continued talking about random stuff, but when she started tapping the microphone, people started to pay attention to her.

"Is this on?" She asked, voice booming through some of the speakers near the back of the room.

"Good, it's on," She added, "I'm Eileen Robertson, seventh witch of the Twentieth House. I'm here to inform you all about what kinds of occult activity to be on the watch for. We have reason to believe that a missing student may have been attempting to summon demons or worse."

"Summoning rituals are highly forbidden, because we learned of terrible entities that lurked on the other side. They were discovered in the Industrial revolution, but thankfully were purged from the world by the combined efforts of cabals across Europe, Asia, and America. However, we have reason to believe people may be attempting to usurp all of our cabals' powers with demons."

Peter simply put his hands into a mouth and started yammering, making someone next to him chuckle a bit. He really was there to just make fun of all this, or wanting to see what'd happen if she started speaking about werebeasts.

About half an hour later (Though it felt like four whole hours to Peter) someone finally raised their hand and asked about werewolves and the like. Eileen seemed to be a bit confused for a few seconds, before finally answering.

"Well, you would probably know if that student was a werewolf, but were-beasts normally keep to themselves. However, we do accept were-beasts into our house, now."

"Bullshit," Peter coughed.

"Excuse me?" Eileen said.

Peter didn't respond. He said what he needed to, at least.

"Well then, what other questions do you have?" Eileen asked.

"You seriously would not believe these elitists," Peter typed to Ben on his phone, "They claim that they're opening up to Therianthropes. LOL yeah right, they probably want to put our pelts out on their walls."

Peter was just sitting outside at the moment, enjoying the sun like a lot of were-lions did. Despite the glare he was getting, he didn't mind. You quickly learned to get used to the glare, despite having a few damn-you-autocorrect moments.

Right as his phone beeped that he had received a message back, he suddenly had an odd sensation. There was someone watching him nearby, but where was it? He mentally twitched his ears and looked around for someone looking directly at him. Even if he was getting watched all the time back in the UK by closed-circuit televisions, he had a separate feeling when someone was actually watching him.

Peter spotted his apparent watcher. It was one of those bodyguards from that lecture. Where the hell was Eileen? He looked around for her but didn't see her at all. That was pretty impressive, since there was almost no way to miss a girl with a large blotch of purple in her hair.

He looked away for a minute, and then looked back. The bodyguard was there, but he seemed to be even closer now. Peter looked at him and backed away, not letting the bodyguard leave his sight. Oddly enough, the man didn't move at all. Peter finally turned around, better not moonwalk around campus anyways. After a few minutes of walking, he turned around again.

Sure enough, there was that bodyguard in his line of vision, almost unmoving. He was being followed for sure. Peter turned around for one minute, and then looked behind him again. The man was getting closer and closer still, yet whenever Peter was looking at him, the man did not move.

Peter finally stood there with his back to the man, waiting for him to get closer. Jumping a therianthrope was always a bad idea, and if cabalists from the Twentieth House didn't know that, then it was a good time to teach. He stood there for half a minute, before finally he could sense the bodyguard behind him.

Peter finally whipped around and smacked the bodyguard right across the face. Right as he did that, his hand became somewhat furry as pads developed across the front. As soon as it shifted into a rather leonine paw, it turned right back to normal. No need to go all were-lion in broad daylight, especially if it was to scare one person away.

"You really shouldn't have done that, beastman," The bodyguard said, holding his sore face. That was going to leave a mark.

"No, you shouldn't have, you've been chasing me."

"Because, it's not every day we see a werelion outside of their pride. Even the were-cougars don't leave their mountains that often," The bodyguard said, moving his hand from the pawed wound.

"I'm making a new pride - what do you think I'm doing here?" Peter said.

"I was here to take you with us. The most powerful Cabal in the world is now searching for your kind to fill our ranks. You're not exactly a monster. We know that. Our own leader Topham even ordered us to search for some of your kind."

"Sorry, no thanks," Peter said.

"You seem to not realize that we have you in a precarious position right now, werelion," The bodyguard said, glaring at Peter through the poker sunglasses, "A British Werelion in America. And you didn't even go to a campus with a significant 'Other' population. We're right in the middle of a quote un quote normal campus. You can either join us willingly."

The bodyguard held up a hand, which started to glow with magical energy.

"Or I slam this right into your chest and reveal you for who you really are, and then parade you around campus to show everyone what was lurking amongst their kind. I can do this, or that. Your choice."

"Sorry, the bet choice is always C," Peter said as his hand went lion-mode again and swiped right across the man's chest with a ripping noise. He even used his claws this time, too.

"AGH!" The bodyguard stumbled back, not even bothering to counterattack with what he had ready.

By the time he had regained his balance, he could spot the were-lion running right on off. He tilted down his glasses and got a good look at the human running off faster than normal. He put them back on, viewing a were-lion running to the west.

The man then took out a device that looked very much like a cell phone, placing a hand to his chest and trying to knit his wounds shut. He held it to his face with his free hand.

"Connor, Eileen, Keyes here. The were-lion has taken off towards the arboretum. You may wish to call over Sloth and contain him. That's his line of work."

In no time flat, Peter had made it right to the Arboretum. It was probably the closest the campus had to a forest, and easily a great spot to hide on out. Thankfully, Peter wasn't out of breath at all, after all he did have a lot more stamina than other humans did.

Peter then smiled and took out his smart phone, and then pressed a button to call someone. Unfortunately, he soon heard an error message playing.

"Unable to pick up a signal."

Damn-it! Of course, it was the Arboretum. You couldn't make any calls from inside this area. Peter looked around before heading west, making sure that there weren't anymore bodyguards walking around like some kind of slasher film monster.

Unbeknownst to him, Eileen and Connor were also in the arboretum, as well as another force.

"Is the area secured?" Eileen asked her subordinate.

"Yes, it is," Connor said, "Do I have to keep this glamour on, though?"

"No, you can remove it," Eileen said.

The other bodyguard then seemed to vanish, instead leaving in place a rather thin looking human who didn't look threatening. Illusions to make him look more imposing than he really was.

"I hate having to summon this thing," Eileen said, taking out a card and then tossing it to the ground. In a small puff of smoke, the Incarnation named Sloth appeared. Sloth appeared to like a rather large man, almost ape-like in appearance, but his face obviously didn't look very human.

Sloth appeared to have somewhat of a primate-ish face, but also human enough to tell that he was tired, like he always was. The demon yawned a bit as he stretched.

"Come on, I was napping..." He grunted.

"No time for that now," Eileen said, "I need you to try and wear-down someone. We're not trying to kill anyone, only capture a were-lion."

"A were-lion? You know I hate those," Sloth groaned, "It's hard to wear them down. Can't you just send me back and ask Despair or Wrath?"

Eileen instead held her hand out and a pair of metallic lances extended from a space above her palms, poking the demon's rubbery chest painlessly.

"No," She said, "Despair is still recovering, and there is no way we are risking Wrath. Slow the area down. Inside Connor's barriers."

Sloth sighed a bit and then stood up, as Eileen and Conner begun to feel their perceptions of time slowing a bit, feeling the urge to fall asleep.

"NOT US!" Eileen shouted, poking these lances into the demon's chest, snapping out of it, "If Connor falls asleep, there goes the barrier!"

"You should have been more specific," Sloth grunted.

"Find the werelion and slow HIM down, not US," Eileen demanded.

"Fine fine," Sloth grunted again as Eileen and Connor could feel their perception of time returning to them. As this happened, Eileen retracted her 'lances'. However, Connor was still nodding off just a tad.

"Wake up," She said to Connor, shaking him a tad.

He grunted a bit, as Sloth ambled off to find where the were-lion was. Eileen followed close, making sure Connor was still awake first.

Peter was fighting off something odd. A strong urge to nap. Normal humans at this point would be asleep, but not him. Unless it was really hot out or if it was during Math Class, Peter would never feel the urge to nod off at all. It had to have been those Twentieth House kooks - they must have been in here trying to put him to sleep.

"Show yourselves, whoever you are!" Peter shouted, rubbing his face a bit.

There was no response, however Peter could catch on a scent. Something of leather and perfume towards the southeast.

"Got you there," He said, looking in that direction, "Quit hiding behind those illusions or whatever."

Finally, the person he was shouting at stepped forward. It was her, Eileen. Robertson.

"Still awake, are you? Sloth! Slow him more!" Eileen shouted.

Peter soon started to feel heavier, almost like someone was putting weight on his shoulders. He still held himself up a bit, not wanting to transform quite yet.

"Come with us quietly, and you won't be hurt," Eileen said to the were-lion, "We're just trying to help you."

"Yeah, hanging my pelt on your walls?" Peter panted, being weighed down more by the unbearable force.

"Sloth! Put him to sleep," Eileen shouted again.

"No, I'm tired," a strangely inhuman voice grunted, "You do it."

"...I hate hurting people like this," Eileen said, walking closer to Peter.

"You really shouldn't have done that," Peter said, tapping into his other side.

Eileen stopped and took a few steps back, right as she could see a pair of tan ears poking out of Peter's dark hair. He started to growl a bit, as he started to stand upright. Peter's shirt started to rip as his muscles toned and grew. His body was getting larger and larger by the second.

Peter's shirt ripped to shreds, being already made of cheap Tesco junk in the first place. (Therianthropes' specialty) He stood fully upright, glaring at Eileen with piercing yellowy eyes, now bearing slit pupils, just like a real lion. It seemed to have some effect on intimidating people. As did looking bigger.

From Peter's perspective, Eileen seemed to shrink. It wasn't her shrinking though, it was just Peter growing. His body started growing wider and wider with muscles as fur covered all of his body, mostly a golden colour that was a bit lighter around his front side. Not that anyone would have cared that much, though. Peter's already thick hair begun to thicken more and more, wrapping around his face before coming to a point in between his thick pectorals, just like his mane between his shoulderblades.

Peter's hands and fingers thickened, and he instinctively flexed his fingers, sending a pair of rather thin looking claws out. They didn't have any of Keyes's blood left on them, but one cut from them would have left anyone bleeding for a little, and in stinging searing pain for much much longer. He smiled a carnivorous smile at Eileen as his face cracked forward, into a muzzle, black lips opening up and revealing a set of vicious looking fangs. His "Dilandau face" always had that effect on people.

Unlike most other werebeasts, Peter's pants and underpants were then torn to shreds as his legs bulked up. Rather than his knees bending backwards like what one would have thought, his feet instead widened and expanded, muscled calves shrinking a bit as they formed a pair of digitigrade legs. Peter didn't so much care that his were-lion form was much too big for clothing, but he could certainly scare a puny human from the Twentieth House away.

"EEEK!" Eileen shouted and looked away. Right in front of her, Peter was naked. He couldn't help but chuckle at this with a rather deep voice. Claws erupted from the tips of his toes. His changes finished as a tail slithered out of his rear, developing a black tassle at the tip.

"What's wrong?" Peter taunted, "Never seen a were-lion in all his glory before?"

"Get away from me! Sloth? SLOTH! SLOTH! HELP!" Eileen shouted, holding her hand out as her metal-lances appeared once more, extending to Peter's chest. With feline grace, he snatched them in one of his paws and then bent the small iron bars.

"Sloth! Slow him again! He broke out!" Eileen shouted.

"Not so tough now, are you?" Peter growled, towering over the human by now,.

Eileen waved both her hands and a shining cloud appeared. Peter shut his eyes and coughed - it was like a cloud of metal. He stepped back, paws crushing a few leaves and sticks on the ground. What the hell was this, a cloud of glitter?

"SLOTH! Get off your ape-butt and GET OVER HERE!!" He heard Eileen's voice shouting.

Peter opened his eyes, right out of the glitter-cloud right now. Just in time to see Eileen running away. Before he could follow her, a rather large ape-like figure jumped right in front of him, still looking tired. Peter had seen people who could become gorillas before, but they were never like this.

"Just hold still," Sloth said, "That'll make this easier. I want to go back to sleeping."

Peter didn't even give this 'Sloth' person a chance and brought his claws right over his face.

Eileen ran over to Connor as fast as she could. The human was looking somewhat distressed, looking around to find what to do.

"Connor! Better be prepared to call for backup - this were-lion is big! I even saw his...I don't want to get to that now. He bent my lances!"

"I think we got worse news than someone bending your lances," Connor said, "Someone's penetrated the barrier."

"What? Who got through? Keyes went back for healing...did he summon backup before leaving?"

"No! I don't recognize them. Three of them showed up."

Suddenly, there was a creaking noise. Before Connor could react, a series of branches and vines wrapped around his body, tightly pinning his arms to his sides, thankfully giving him enough room to breathe. Eileen jumped, looking around, before something heavy smacked into her abdomen, knocking her to the ground. She struggled to get up, before she was rolled to her back by the being on her back, giving her a good look at it. It was a stuffed panda.

"Alana! Keep an eye on those two!" an unfamiliar voice said, while Connor and Eileen looked around for where this was. All they could see was a girl with brown hair and another woman running in the direction where Peter and Sloth were engaged.

"Oh no!" Connor said, looking over at the other woman - attached to her waist were nine silvery tails.

Despite all his muscle, Peter was a lot faster than Sloth. Already, he had covered the creature's body in slashes from his claws. The odd thing was, he wasn't instantly bleeding or even reeling in pain.

"Why don't you fall?" Peter roared to Sloth.

"Doesn't hurt me one bit," Sloth hooted back, rearing his fist back up to give Peter a large punch. Peter thankfully stepped out of the way, before grabbing the creature's thick arm and then tried to flip him over. Unfortunately for him, Sloth seemed to weigh more than a hummer full of bricks.

When that failed, Peter instead put a paw into his elbow and sent Sloth's hand back in his own face, knocking the creature to the ground. What the hell was this thing? It was like fighting a giant beanbag if beanbags weighed a ton.

"There he is! Sloth!" A female voice shouted.

Peter looked towards where these voices were - it wasn't Eileen. She turend tail and ran. Instead, he could see who these were. It looked like a strange fox-girl, and another college girl whom he swore he recognized.

"Oh I did not need to see that," The somewhat familiar girl said, covering his eyes.

"You'll see far worse if you don't help him," The fox said, "Assist him!"

The familiar girl pulled her hand away from her face and took out something, then threw it to the ground. Instantly, something that looked like a giant teddy bear appeared. Sloth suddenly groaned, distracting Peter from the sight. Peter then gave him a sergal grin, seeing the various wounds he inflicted suddenly start to bleed. Delayed reaction indeed.

"Hold him down!" The girl shouted, calling Peter's attention away from Sloth. What he saw next he almost couldn't believe. The familiar girl was clinging onto what looked to be a giant plush teddy bear, albeit with a leopard-skin pattern. It walked quite unrealistically, but she still kept her balance.

"The fuck?" Peter asked.

"I said hold him down!" The girl said again as Sloth begun to get up. He soon started to get knocked around as the plush leopard started smacking the demon with its oversized arms.

"Were you the one who gave Despair a tough time?" Sloth asked as he turned around to the plush-rider.

"Yes!" The girl shouted, "Here, have some of THIS!"

She then took out something like a spray can and sprayed it right in the demon's face. Seemingly nothing happened, before Sloth smiled.

"That did not hurt, " He said.

"Have you forgotten about ME?" Peter growled as he brought his paws right around the demon's neck, gently slicing the demon's neck with his finger claws.

"Just hold him until everything starts taking effect!" The fox-eared girl shouted, "Look out!"

The fox-like woman then tossed small balls of fire at the demon. Both the plush-rider and Peter let go, backing up as he was covered in this foxfire.

"...Looks like I'm gone," The demon said, looking over his burning, scratched up body, "You know those two humans I was answering to, Eileen and Connor? Don't hurt them. They're only with Topham because he saved them."

Blood spurted out of wounds from his body, including his neck. The demon begun to howl in pain, as he suddenly collapsed. The fox-fire extinguished itself as some of his wounds opened up, revealing something like a stone shining through.

"That's the stone! Get it this time!" The fox woman shouted.

"Allow me," Peter said, plunging his paw into the open wounds and grabbing the stone. It didn't move, even when he pulled as hard as he could.

"Smash it! He'll resurrect if you don't crush it!"

Peter took the hint and then tried to crush it as fast as he could. It took half a minute, but once he trapped it between his thumb and foreclaws, it shattered.

"Good, now I can sleep," Sloth's voice grunted as the demon's body seemed to fade away from existence.

"What was that, and who're you?" Peter asked, standing back up to his height, "More Twentieth House kooks?"

"Allow me to introduce myself," the fox woman said, walking over to Peter, "I'm Mara, this is one of my companions, Journey. We're not affiliated with the Twentieth House in any way...we have our own little house now. I must say, you are quite powerful and...attractive, such muscles."

Mara was then smacked right across the head with Journey's handback.

"Be serious now!" Journey hissed.

"Sorry," she responded, "It's a long story...a bit too long to explain here. We'll have to take you to the Manitou House."

"And how do I know you're not just looking for a were-lion pelt to hang in your lounge?"

"I have an Oathstone on me," Mara said, "I cannot lie. First, do you want to change back to a form a bit more portable?"

"Do you think I'm going to walk around as a naked human?" Peter asked.

"Probably not," Journey said, "It's bad enough you're naked now..."

Spiritual Age Chapter four

Digitalpotato

Rated mature mostly for nudity and violence.

Anyways, Peter is controlled by Wyraach Ur or hemos or whatever he is going by here. :P

I promised you TF.

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