“Spread your arms out,” the bouncer commanded as he reached out to frisk me.

I was standing in front of a bar with Zack and three other guys.

The person searching me was definitely a werewolf based on his scent as well as his looks.

To him, we were average people, we had all removed as much of our natural body odour as possible with specific anti-odourant soap, and shampoo. On top of that, we had splashed on copious amounts of cologne to further mask anything that might give us away. The same treatment was done to our clothes.

Once I was done being searched, I stepped off to the side to see Zack get inspected as well.

He cocked his head lazily to the side as he pursed his lips, I just grinned.

My best bro joined me once his turn was over and the next guy to get frisked was Vince. Turns out that he was a werecoyote and had known Zack a bit longer than I did. They both had the same amount of experience and when I first met him, he seemed to treat me well enough. However, when he found out I was actually a dragon, he had seemed a bit more candid with me. Maybe I was overthinking shit but I couldn’t tell if he liked me or hated my guts.

The next guy was Brent, a wood elf. Stereotypically, he was the thief archetype down to a T, his specialty being able to get in and out of places discreetly. According to him, he has never been caught. He was the newest addition to the crew, save me, which meant that this would be our first job with the crew.

Lastly was Felix, who was apparently a magician that specialised in wind magic. He was the only human with us.

Once we had all been searched, we moved into the entrance, paid said entrance fee, and found a small table.

The bar doubled as a club with a raised L-shape dais that framed a dance floor, the area was connected by some stairs. A DJ was set up in the corner and the floor was decently packed with people jamming to the music.

This had been my first time in such a place like this and it was courtesy of the fake ID that Zack had gotten for me.

Our group had ordered a round of drinks, while we waited for our targets to show up.

I was especially antsy and was doing my best to keep that from showing, but it seemed the guys around me weren’t buying it.

“You good?” pryed Brent with a quirked eyebrow.

His eyes flicking up and down like I was an addict waiting on my next fix.

I didn’t answer him and instead looked away into the crowd of dancing night-goers. They thought I was afraid, they were wrong. This needed to be done and over with but I didn't care what they thought so I remained silent.

“Maybe we should have Niko wait in the car,” Vince suggested and I sensed him cross his arms from out the corner of my eye. “The need for a getaway driver is still a valid option if things go sideways.”

“You can shift right?” asked Felix in his semi nasally voice. “He can shift right, cos if not there’s no real reason for you to be here.”

I steeled myself for a moment as I stared down at him.

“No offense,” he then quickly added.

Zack was staring at me with a neutral gaze and despite our history, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

One moment we would be making cringe-inducing jokes and now it was like I was being stared at by a stranger.

I had been impatient as fuck to do this when I came to him, but it was one thing to get psyched up while you were out living your life, to then actually doing the deed and being in the thick of it. I didn't like having to wait around for these pricks.

“Maybe you should pass him the keys,” Brent suggested.

Vince nodded and dug his hand into his jacket to pull out car keys to give to me.

“You keep them fucking keys to yourself Vince,” stated Zack, eyes still fixed on myself. “I’m going to head to john.”

As Zack got up, he gestured for me to follow him.

We walked along the raised dais of the floor, where the bar was, before moving up the stairs along the far wall to reach the toilets.

Once we were in, the two of us weren’t alone as I noticed some shifting feet behind a stall.

Zack waited in front of said stall and said nothing. so neither did I.

“Zack…” I began but my excuse was cut off by a flush.

Some guy came out wiping his nose and was shocked to see Zack before him. He glared for a split sec before recognising that Zack wasn’t the guy you wanted smoke from and then his eyes flicked to me.

He walked around my friend and out of the men’s room. Zack entered the stall and lifted the tank lid of the toilet.

“Do you want to be here Niko?” Zack asked as he put on his black leather gloves.

“Yes,” I answered, making sure to withhold my annoyance.

“Then why do you look skittish, I'm getting mixed signals here.”

He reached into the tank and pulled out a baggy filled with various items, carefully moving it to one of the sinks.

Zack had organised with someone to smuggle a few pistols into the bar for our job.

“The first time I shifted was by accident,” I told him. “I tried doing it again in my room when I had a chance to myself but I had no luck.”

Zack unzipped the baggy and inspected what I guessed was a desert eagle before stowing it in his jacket.

“You were probably nervous and didn’t want to cause any damage,” he explained. “You won’t have any such problems if shit hits the fan, from what I know about shifters it’s mostly instinctual. Besides, if everything goes as planned you probably won’t have to anyways.”

“I don't know about that, it's not that I'm nervous…”

“Niko,” Zack interrupted, “didn’t I tell you the first time that you came round and you told me you were jumped, that you need to take chances?”

I nodded.

“Then trust me, I ain’t stupid," Zack declared. "If I thought you had no business being here, I wouldn’t have brought you with us or would have put a pin in your request then and there. Best bro or not.”

He passed another pistol to me to stow away, so I hid it in the waistband of my trousers.

“Just in case there is that slim chance you can’t shift, I have something for you, it’s called Gold Rush. It’s the stuff you got jumped for, it might help kickstart your powers or something.”

After Zack passed me the vial, he took the plastic bag and threw it out the men’s room window.

I went to place the tank lid back where it belonged and rejoined my friend.

My best friend then walked beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Do what you want Niko. I can tell you don’t want to fuck this chance up, don't focus on that. Only you would have to deal with the consequences of your actions, win or lose.”

I began to line up my focus myself, Zack’s words put me back on track and made me realise the reason I was here in the first place. Turning to look directly at my friend, I returned his determined expression.

“I can do this. They won’t fuck with me anymore.”

“My man,” he said as he nudged my arm.

We exited the men’s room and returned downstairs to rejoin the rest of the crew.

Most of them stared at me with varying degrees of apprehension, Brent, especially for some reason. I paid them no mind and simply sipped my drink which happened to be a long island ice tea.

A few minutes later and a group of three guys strode in past us, two of which were holding duffel bags. They seemed to be on edge as their eyes darted around, which made them stand out to us but to the inebriated night-lifers? Not so much.

Because of my positioning, I was able to keep a loose eye on them without it seeming too obvious. My eye followed them as they went past a red door with a ‘no admittance’ sign, that no doubt led to what we were after.

We all played it casual for a couple minutes after that but then Zack pushed up his sleeve to inspect his watch and then nodded to us.

Vince and Zack got up from the table and moved to head to the door the wolves had gone through.

The rest of us at the table carried on like nothing was happening, but if things went according to plan, they would go wait there for us.

The next person to get up was Felix after a couple of minutes and walk past the same door, followed by myself and Brent, a few more minutes after that.

I passed one of the pistols that Zack had given me to Vince.

We headed down the stairs towards the basement and because the path was so narrow, Zack took the lead with the rest of us following him in a single file.

As we drew away for the noisy floor, I could hear the sound of some machines going off and idle chatter but as soon as Zack reached the bottom, I could see him aim his pistol at someone. This move was quickly followed by Vince taking up another position and doing the same.

“Evening gentlemen & lady,” Zack announced.

Within the space was a small desk on the far side and a rectangular table that was roughly situated in the middle.

On the desk was a money counter and behind said desk, was a half confused, half pissed looking dude with a pretty dope-looking beard.

Around the table were three other shifters, two male and one female, all sharing a similar look of disbelief and anger.

On the table was an assortment of bags filled with money and drugs, some of the contents of said bags were strewn on the table.

“Put the rest of the shit in the bag,” Vince ordered as he gestured with his pistol.

“Who the fuck are you guys?” snarled the lead wolf as he got up from his seat.

I noticed that his skin began to prickle, like he was on the edge of a shift but my boy Zack shut that shit down real quick.

“Easy fiddo,” Zack mock soothed as he moved on the wolf, aiming his gun closer to their head. “Unless you want us to splatter your brains all over this room, you and your friends are gonna do exactly as we ask.”

The man was staring at the barrel of Zack’s weapon and was most likely calculating the likelihood of regenerating from the wound a hand cannon would cause to his skull.

Very low, if he and I did the same math.

“You know what, each of you, up against the wall,” Vince ordered.

The shifters around the table refused to do as Vince said, so he growled as he shifted into his werecoyote form and moved around the table to round them up.

“I told you to grab some fucking wall,” he said as he yanked one of the guys and began doing quick frisks. “You even think about shifting and I’ll claw your throats out.”

As this was going on, Brent, Felix, and I began refilling the bags of their original contents.

“Hey Brent,” Vince called and he passed a pistol he’d confiscated from one of the wolves.

Brent took the pistol, looked confused for a half-second, and quickly stuffed it in his trousers.

“You assholes are making a big fucking mistake,” said the guy behind the desk.

“That’s right,” growled the woman who was against the wall. “Our alpha will hunt you all down and rip you-”

Before the female werewolf could finish her threat, Vince pistol-whipped her between the shoulder blades. This made me wince.

The woman shot Vince a dirty look when she recovered and he did his best representation of smirk with his canine muzzle.

“We’re packing silver rounds, so I wouldn’t be getting too mouthy if I were you,” Zack warned.

He then moved from in front of the desk, to stand next to the wolf, holding the barrel of the gun to their temple.

“You see my bro over there?” Zack asked, gesturing to me with his eyes. “Your friends jumped him and messed him up all because he made a delivery for me. He didn’t even know that all this magical shit existed until a couple of days ago.”

I had finished zipping up a bag and noticed that a few eyes gravitated between to myself. They were clearly accepted what Zack was saying but didn’t seem all that remorseful. That really pissed me off.

“That’s still no excuse for you numbskulls to pull whatever bullshit this is,” said the head wolf held at gunpoint. “If you wanted to just clean us out you could have been honest instead of using such a lame-ass excuse to justify it. You're going too far.”

I slammed the bag I was carrying on the table and reached for the gun that was stuffed in the back of Brent’s trousers.

He resisted a bit but my strength and zero fuck attitude had the pistol in my hand in a second.

I racked the slide and a bullet slid out onto the floor, ignoring that, I aimed the pistol at his chest.

“It may not look like it, but your asshole sniffing friends battered the shit out of me and threatened to-”

I cut my tirade short as I caught myself from slipping up and revealing Sophie’s involvement.

“Anyways, it may not look like it but even though I heal real damn good, it doesn’t mean that the injuries I got were painless.”

He didn’t say anything, hell the fucker looked like he was staring through me.

“How about I fire a couple into you since it’s no big deal, we’re not in a rush anyways.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was the bass in my voice or my threat, but his eyes flickered to me and then the pistol that was a couple of centimeters to the left from where his heart was.

Feeling the need to press it, I aimed to pistol at his cheek.

“My bad,” he admitted.

I cursed under my breath and backed away but as I did, there were footsteps coming down the passage we had entered through.

We all froze as the steps got louder, save for Zack and Vince as they put their fingers to their lips.

“Alfie, I asked your ass to get up here,” called some guy.

“We’re getting robbed!” yelled one of the guys against the wall.

“Motherfucker!” yelled Vince as he pistol-whipped the guy so hard, I could hear their skull crack before hitting the ground.

The room erupted into chaos as several things happened at once.

Two of the remaining wolves against the wall, spun around to try and overpower Vince while Zack’s pistol went off but missed the target’s head.

They were all shifting, while the rest of my crew were trying their hardest to defend themselves, Brent and Felix didn’t move a muscle though. I didn’t even have the opportunity to snap them out of it, as a split second later a wolf leaped down from the stairs and onto the table.

The table shook, knocking over loose objects and the werewolf’s eyes were pinned on me with a ferocious intensity.

They reared their legs back to launch at me, but before they could pounce, a gust of wind knocked them off and they hit the edge of the passageway steps; whining like a little pup.

“Shoot the asshole for crying out loud!” yelled Felix and I remembered the pistol in my right hand.

Because of my fuck all experience with guns, only two shots were able to land before emptying the clip.

I pulled the trigger a few more times but each round that was able to hit, only marginally slow down the shifter. All it really did was give the wolf more time to recover. Discarding the gun, I tried to fish for the vial Zack gave me earlier.

I got my hand around the vial, just as the wolf leapt on me and wrapped its maw around my arm.

“Aarrgghhh, fuck!” I screamed in pain as the fucker gnawed on my arm.

“Niko!” I heard someone call out my name and guessed it was probably Brent.

The weight, combined with the lack of readiness on my part had me on the floor, hard.

My head reared back because of the immense pain and I could see that Zack was in a similar position, he was in his half-orc form fighting off the hybrid wolf that had him pressed to the wall.

The badass was doing his best to keep the werewolf at arm's length, literally, he was bracing his arm under their throat as he laid into him with a couple of punches.

Even in danger, Zack was still the same, giving no fucks and giving as good as he got. He needed my help and that was what I was going to give.

I took the vial in my free hand and with as much control, forced it to my right nostril.

Inhaling deeply, I let the contents enter my nose and returned to focusing my effort on defending myself.

I dropped an elbow on the top of the wolf’s head and it finally let go of my mangled arm.

The wound began to heal over, while the fuck put some space between us so that they could shift into their hybrid form.

“I’m going to tear you and your little friends to shreds,” he promised as he barred his teeth at me.

As he moved closer, I just clocked him in the jaw, still fully human like I was Mayweather. I registered the absolute shock in his animal eyes and grinned at his discomfort.

My body began to shift as I felt my spine crack in several different places, the bones in my limbs began to break and reform themselves. My skull was also reforming as my maw extended but all the pain of this was nothing compared to the heat that enveloped every muscle fiber of my body.

It was part elation and part agonising rage as my shift took control and my clothes tore, unable to handle the transition into my superior form.

I roared out so loud that the room itself shook and I wondered if the people upstairs could hear me as well.

Even those in the room froze at my outcry of passion and I took this opportunity to move on the wolf that had attacked me.

He didn’t even register my hand around his throat until a second or two later, either because of how stunned he was or the speed at which I had snatched him up.

“You’re going to tear me, to shreds?” I laughed maniacally.

I then backhanded the wolf so hard into the side of the wall.

Turning back slowly, I surveyed the room to see ally and foe alike were frozen, save for the wolf that had now braced Zack against him.

“Come any closer and I’ll claw his throat out,” he threatened.

The space was silent but for my low menacing chuckle and the background noise from the club music above.

“I dare you,” I said coolly, or as coolly as a seven-foot force of nature could be.

Vince took this opportunity to backhand a wolf off of him and kick the other, both clattering against the wall.

The former looked like he wanted to try again but a snarl from Vince and a side-eye from myself killed whatever retaliation he had had in mind.

“You can take your beating for disrespecting me or I can torture your friends before killing you,” I informed. “Slowly.”

Zack’s eyes were wider but he still seemed to keep his calm. The wolf with his claws to his throat was a different matter, the sight of him in his beast form hyperventilating was comical.

He proved himself a fool and leapt at me to try and claw at my eyes. Unfortunately for him, my instinct for battle was second to none and I sidestepped the blow to dig my own claws in his throat.

Blood began to spray down my arm with some of it getting on my face as the werewolf’s body convulsed in my grip.

“What’s the matter?” I taunted, “you got something in your throat?”

I let him thrash for a while before letting him go.

I moved over to Zack after he had picked himself up, nursing his arm as it had collided with the ground first.

Our eyes met for a brief moment before I nudged him in his hurt arm.

“Son of a-” he cursed as he clutched tighter at his arm. “The hell was that for?”

I grinned.

“Nothing really, I just felt like it,” I told him shrugging, “or maybe it was because I had to save your lame ass.”

“Funny, because I remember saving your ass countless times in the past,” Zack retorted and then he lashed out with his own punch.

The hit didn’t even make me budge and this made Zack grimace in annoyance to my delight.

I turned around the room to address everyone.

“Grab the bags and let’s get out of here,” I ordered.

Rather than scrambling to grab the loot, they all stared around like a bunch of stuttering idiots. To wake them up, I gave a sharp clap with my thick hands.

“Bags, now!”

The rest of the crew got to do as I said, while the rest of the wolves were either knocked out or immobilised with fear.

I snatched one of the bags from the table but before heading upstairs I turned to address them.

“Make sure you get everything into bags,” I instructed, “I don’t want any of my loot getting left behind.”

“Your loot?” Felix shot back and I pinned him with my gaze.

My crew did as I said and gathered everything up, even going as far as to pick stuff up from the floor.

I led them back up the stairs and once I pushed open the doors, I was met by a few gasps of surprise as people gawked at me. There were even a few muffled screams.

I paid them no mind as I continued to head for the exit. As I passed the admission stall, I saw the woman that managed it, gawk but I just gave her a quick grin and left through the entrance.

My crew and I made our way to the pick-up that was in the parking area almost the street from the bar. Zack had arranged it for the job and we dumped the goods in the back as we got in.

I was still too large, so I hopped in the back with the rest of our ill-gotten gains and soon were on our way driving off into the night.

My first job and I had taken complete control of the situation despite shit nearly going sideways. I was surrounded by the loot and was filled with a great sense of pride at my first real accomplishment.

I roared out a triumph of victory that was only the first of many.