CHPT 272: Sights have been set.....

Training ended after the embarrassing beatings left him broken and bleeding in a pond too shallow to be effective on its own.

With his tail between his legs-- quite literally, he carried himself to the river to clean himself with the rest of the pack.

Like the rest of the losers, his sour expression only became worse as the icy water ran through his cuts and tightened his pale human skin. After a mere minutes, the river was littered with Lupine blood and the groups conversed while they relaxed within its cold embrace, now clean and cooled off from combat.

Samuel stood in the water, back facing the rest while he rested his elbows on land. In the distance, the sounds of younger Lupines playing and older ones talking all blended into a calming social hum on his ears that did nothing to quiet the scream of shame within his mind.

He could still hear Aline's smooth and confident laugh at the end of the river as she joked around with the older Lupines.

"Bastard...." He growled.

"I don't think that's the type of greeting I deserve, no?" Bengal said from behind him, partially stunning him.

He spun around in a flash. Showing Lupines your back didn't ever end well for him. "Bengal.." He spat a greeting.

Bengal wadded through the waters and sat stood next to him, bright blue eyes shimmering with a sick form of curiosity, "So, tell me of the beasts that roam your homelands.....does it snow there?...are they strong?.....Have you ever hunted any? Do they enjoy human flesh..."

His ramblings went on for another span of minutes, making Samuel's ears sting as his patience collapsed. It was only a matter of time before he could take no more.

"...Does your home country have the rifts? Do they transform your animals too? I re--"

Samuel turned and looked up at him with eyes that glowed like burning embers, "BENGAL ENOUGH! I'm in no mood to talk....leave me.."

Bengal's mouth ceased movement, but his eyes communicated the rest of his thoughts.

The Lupines around them quieted, steaming slightly in response to the threat of violence.

The two stared at each-other for a matter of seconds before Bengal nodded in understanding. The boyish grin never left his face as he looked at his hand and dipped it in the water.

Samuel turned away from him, eager to get back to his eventful session of brooding by the rivers edge.

Before he could take even four steps Bengal called for him again, "Hey, blondy!"

Samuel growled, "You fuc--"

SLAP!

As soon as he turned around, Bengal's hand emerged from the icy waters and slapped him so hard he felt his lip immediately begin to swell. The combination of hot pain and icy water left him stunned as Bengal grabbed his shoulders and shook him with his lean and wiry arms.

When he spoke, his Russian accent distorted his words and made him sound like a cold-hearted warlord in a teenage body, "Stop being a bitch, yes? You will stop, now! You think every one of us wouldn't lose to such a powerful monster of a woman? HMM!?! You have to give it time.....even the ice of Mother Islandia doesn't freeze the dead in an instant, yes?"

Samuel's anger boiled over in the face of being forced to accept his plethora of losses, for a moment all he saw was red.

"RAGH!"

CRACK!

In an explosion of anger, he lunged forward. The gold and silver Lupine's heads collided loudly, causing them both to stumble backward in the water in pain while the surrounding Lupines erupted in laughter.

Samuel growled silently to himself at the pain of re-breaking his nose while Bengal did the same in front of him.

With no more uncontrollable anger left within him, all he could do was sit with either his pain...or his thoughts. He chose pain...but his accelerated healing ended that option quickly and left him with his thoughts.

It didn't take long for him to realize how correct Bengal was. He never expected to return from NoxIce Keep and immediately become king of the Lupines with his newfound purpose. So what was he getting out of his body for? Everyone else knew the answer-- including himself. But he wasn't going to be the one to say it. Still, Bengal wasn't wrong. Things take time.

CRNCH!

"Rrrrrngg.....Fuck!" They growled in unison after snapping their noses in place.

Samuel stood in the water across from Bengal for a few seconds as he watched him. To say what he wanted to felt nearly impossible, but there was nothing else to say.

"....Maybe you're right." He growled.

"Mhm." Bengal replied, his boyish grin returning as he wiped the blood from his nose.

Samuel suddenly felt very uncomfortable, he didn't know what to say. So, he let his eyes wander to the others that watched them and conversed with the ends of laughter plain on their faces.

"Damn spectators..." He thought before his eyes locked with a woman a ways down the river.

Aline. Her blue eyes seemed to always glow from her relaxed and regally feminine face. Suddenly a smirk appeared at the left side of her pink lips, and then she was under the water in a flash. Out of sight but not out of mind.

That's what he thought until a torpedo-like focused ripple blasted through the waters in his direction against the heavy current.

She was using her element to catapult herself through the water at speeds that matched him on land....and he ran without a current against him.

As if he wasn't made aware enough of their difference in power...

"What do you want..." He growled to himself as she flew through the water closer and closer to him.

"Who?" Bengal asked, turning around in search of what Samuel meant.

By the time he turned, she passed him, brushing past his legs under water and causing him to jump fearfully.

"AH!...The hell is that?"

Samuel had no time to answer. She was on him. At least that's what he thought when the ripple of water came to him.

Only stillness met him after. Even as he stomped through the water in front of him. Nothing.

"What..?"

"Samuel, wh--....Oh." Bengal said, giving up on his question halfway.

Samuel looked up in response, finding him looking over his leaned over body at someone behind him.

"Shit.." He let off a growl before spinning to face Aline who now stood behind him.

She looked the same as usual. Captivating when compared to the other Lupines. And nude. Every inch of her exposed skin glimmered with the beads of water than ran down her body under the moonlight and slicked her brown hair down her back. He would've been affected by the sight if she hadn't just beaten his ego senseless. Also the fact that she was partially covered in fur didn't help anything.

Some of the older looking Lupines had that. Despite not being fully transformed, they still showed Lupine characteristics. It was odd.....

She was completely calm. And yet, a thin sheen of brown fur covered the outside of her neck, shoulders, arms and went down to her legs. Even her fingers were tipped with faintly sharpened nails. That same sharpness pointed her ears slightly and gave her permanent fangs that she showed him with a bright white smile.

"You don't know your place, Samuel." She said while pointing a clawed finger at him.

He spit off to the side, "What do you want, Aline?"

She laughed off his response and began circling him and Bengal while looking them over speculatively, "None of you noble boys know your place. I usually enjoy seeing you noble newly changed get beaten into your seats....but you just can't stay seated.." She said pointing at Samuel before doing the same to Bengal, "...And you just don't care...do you?"

The silver Lupine shrugged, "I want to be strong monster....that is what I want."

Aline threw her head back and let out a eerily animalistic laugh that sounded more like a howl, "You two are positively hysterical! Tell me, where are you from?"

"Islandia." Bengal replied with a sense of pride in his tone despite his tough upbringing.

Aline looked to Samuel, "And you?"

Samuel looked at her from beneath his eyebrows, "Why the hell would I tell you?"

Her eyes glowed brighter and toothy grin parted her lips, "Because I asked, you arrogant little prick."

He was ready to snap until he felt dozens of tendrils of water climbing up his chest like a pack of liquid snakes. Any rising anger he was feeling shrunk and Bengals words shook his mind. In time. ".....New Gloria."

Aline's eyes shined even brighter somehow, "Oh really!? shithole of a Home to The Nine, eh? What a superb legion of Heroes..." Sarcasm lined her voice towards the end before she added, "I remember when the first of them made his entrance...with his two Hallowed Weapons and cold beauty. That stupid twat stole Excalibur from my home I tell you...."

Samuel responded on reflex to defend his fathers name, "How dare you?! He worked to be wh--..."

His words trailed off after remembering his opinion on his father had changed drastically since he first entered the Deviant.

The three of them sat in confused silence until he thought over her words again. "My fa--...Ronin came to New Gloria over twenty years ago...you barely look twenty. How old are you, really?"

Aline gave him an offended look, "Don't you know never to ask a woman that, you inconsiderate sod!"

Samuel's face went blank, "Are you telling me you're self conscious about your age. Do we even age?"

Speaking the words made the subject finally dawn on him. Immortality. The idea ignited something within him.

"We do...I think. But I don't really remember." Aline cut through his thoughts, shrugging off her words as if they meant nothing.

Bengal choked on his own saliva, "You don't remember your age? How does that work?"

"Its the trade of the older Lupines. You see, as Lupines our ability to recall events, details, images, codes...even directions. It's one of a kind. A living Lupine is never lost. But, in exchange we slightly lose our sense of time. I can remember the entirety of a certain bed-time story my mother used to read me as a child, but I don't know how many years ago that was. Could've been twenty....forty..fifty. I don't know."

For a moment she looked truly sad. No more daring smiles or accented potty mouth. Just a sad and beaten woman standing with them in the silence. In a flash it was gone, and she asked something that shook him to the core for reasons he couldn't explain. "Anyway. Let's forget my age....I want to know why one of the Scorn of Remus has set his sights on you....."

Samuel backed away as she wadded through the waters towards. He had no idea what she was talking about, leaving him to mutter the simplest of responses. "The who of what?"