CHPT 280: The Light of Luna, The Madness of Malice...

Friday Afternoon, November 30th, 2240. Mere hours until The Full Moon rises....

After Fenrir's outburst of anger that smoothly transitioned to a hard hitting lesson on Claude's moral compass and ideals. All that was left for him was to wait out the day....wait out the suns reign to eventually welcome the Moons rise.

During that time, he did everything he could to keep his mind elsewhere, but nothing worked. His morning workouts had been stretched from an hour and a half to two and a half hours, he hunted twice as much to make up for the lost calories...he even trained in combat with his pack with new and harder drills. Still nothing.

The sun felt like it was moving in slow motion. Never leaving the sky, just watching from above as he mentally deteriorated from anxiety and the urge to get everything over with.

Rollan had left hours before. When Claude first awoken with a horrified roar and snapped at the man, he didn't need Arne to tell him how the night would go-- he could already feel the instinctual urges. Rollan staying would result in an unwanted death for him. For the simple fact that when the Moon finally rose, he'd murder everything with a pulse that moved near his pack and the sleeping Berserker within the forest.

That realization did nothing but support Fenrir's words. The thought made him sick.

And that thought continued to fester and grow as the light of the sun faded further and further.

***

Evening crept into the atmosphere of his world like an unwelcomed old friend. Silent, familiar and attempting to be unseen.

The air was colder-- exponentially colder than usual. His breaths were visible with every hot exhale that escaped his jaws. The winds scratched at his skin like millions of feral fiends looking to rip him apart and reveal the truth inside.

It was the type of cold that swept up from under the best of coats and froze your core solid. If he wasn't a Lupine and relatively impervious to the incredible cold, then simply wearing a pair of ripped pants would've been a problem.

But now, as he walked through the forest, marking and widening his territory even further, he felt hot.

He felt hotter than he felt on most summers. Just as he felt last time. The Moon was hotter than any Sun to a Shape-Shifter.

***

"...I have questions." Claude asked as he stomped through the forest, walking circles around Rollan's home. The cold rummaged through the forest with powerful winds, sending hundreds of leaves to the ground and stripping treetops bare in a flash. All it did was make the sky more visible.

"[Finally! He speaks...What are your questions, Claude?]" Arne replied, happy that the young Lupine was out of his own mind for the first time.

"What's going to happen to Ursula? Will she be ok? First Full Moons are deadly to newly changed Lupines...and she's not even through the change fully..."

Arne was silent for a moment as if his ethereal form was nodding along in understanding, "[I was wondering when you'd ask this. As you saw a matter of days ago...she feels the pull of the Moon. Just as you and your pack does. That means she's already made significant progress due to her own might...and you and Rollan's help. That also means Lunar Magic is affecting her.]"

"Mhm.." He followed along while his nose and ears searched through the forest beyond the distance his eyes could reach.

"[So...it all depends on how far along she is. I've changed people near Full Moons to make them part of my pack. And they could do any number of things. Sometimes the magic boosts your natural processes....sometimes it drives you into something we called a Lunar Trance-- like homicidal sleepwalking. Other times it did change them-- which could result in premature transformations and...erhm...]"

"Death.." Claude finished with a growl while Frosty shook his head beside him as if he was following the conversation.

"[Yes. But thats a rare case and only happens in individuals who aren't strong enough. People who haven't been Reborn usually. Even though you will, I wouldn't worry. Ursula is resilient in a way very few people are. Or have you already forgotten how she tanked a deadly blow from a HellBreeder to save you-- despite knowing what you are. She has her own ideals, and strength that she wants to build upon. I believe she will get through this. If not to simply survive, then to grill you for all the answers she's been trying to get out of you since you guys first met...]"

Even with the dire situations on the rise, Claude felt himself laugh at the memory that seemed so trivial and nicer than his current reality. The memory of the mouthy Berserker alive and well, seeing through Claude as easily as she bench-pressed two hundred and fifty pounds during Training.

He'd like to get back to that. Back to her explaining the oddities of the world of Heroes and Monsters to Maris....or competitive weightlifting bouts with her ideal lifting partner and friend, Isaac. Or even her ability to get Warren to join them in fights with Demonic Witch-Monsters.

In order to see any semblance of that again, he had to survive another Full Moon...only this one wouldn't be clouded with psycho Detectives and Lupines of Remus. Instead his claws would rip through flesh tinged by the flames of Hell.....hopefully that would be all.

His eyes lowered to meet the eyeless face of Gil. The Hound looked up at him as if he could see through his two black spiraling horns.

"We good?" He asked.

Gil snorted and let out a crocodilian bark.

"Good." He replied as if the animalistic noises fell on his ears in perfect English. "Now. It's time to get ready. The sun will only be up for maybe two more hours...."

"[Indeed it will be. Let's hope whatever Rollan prepared will work.]"

***

After a handful of minutes spent walking and crunching through the fallen leaves, he'd found himself facing Rollan's home once again. The wooden statue full of Centaur corpses was long gone with the call to the "Queen of Fire" reaching it's last flaming breath days before. And yet, the smell of burning flames hung to the cold winds like it was still there.

Soon enough the smell of burning would turn into a very real feeling for him...

He shook off the thought and entered Rollan's home in a rush to finalize their preparations. As soon as he stepped inside, he found the usual table now topped with a dark green bag that reeked of more flowers and herbs. Only they didn't smell like the usual plants and such Rollan worked with.

To the left, Ursula slept soundlessly in the hammock. The setting sun gleamed through the window and washed over her noticeably thinner face.

"We'll get through this..." He muttered before approaching the table and rummaging through the bag. "Let's see what you got Rollan.."

As soon as he opened the bag, a note fell out for him to read. It was fresh, he could smell Rollan and his emotional state when he wrote it still. Nothing alarming, but his writings were rushed.

"Dear, Beast of the Beasts. Why can you read, hm? No seriously, I can only assume you know how to read English since you speak it better than myself and speak of Monsters as if all your information came from a biased school book. Hoping that you can read, I've written this note to explain a few things before leaving to FeliAlu City. Your human friend isn't so human is she? Since you can't answer currently I'll assume i'm correct. She's changing. She's aggressive in her slumber. Hell, she snapped at me when I was cleaning her chest injury today....and her body heat has risen considerably since I first worked on her, along with her skin hardening..and she's growing-- like a weed. What is your situation with this young woman, Monsieur? And what are you? These are questions i'd like answered after I return and the Full Moon falls. Until then, I've made you something to get you and yours through most of the night without violence. Sure something will come. But if you're fast asleep behind the SpellBloom Ward it won't matter. So, drink up! And whatever you do, don't break the ward. It will make the Monsters swarm. Best of luck....." The rest of the note began explaining the herbs and plants in the bottle.

"So that's the plan....sleep through most of it. Will that even work?"

"[In theory.....nothing slows down a Lupine during a Full Moon-- it might calm you or center your mind. But we don't have many options.]"

"Damn right we don't. Let's see what it does."

***

After spending a handful of minutes in Rollan's home, tying Ursula to her hammock-- now privy to the knowledge of a possible session of murderous sleepwalking brought on by the Moon. Claude stepped outside to replant the wards before returning to the front of the home where he sat in the grass with a bag full of bottles and plants.

Gil no longer accompanied them due to the unknown possibilities of the Hounds Lunar Madness/Empowerment. If push came to shove, the Hound would return in a flash. But the plan for now was to sleep. Something that he hated and currently seemed impossible. He could only hope whatever Rollan put in the bags could help in changing that.

He pulled out the largest bottle. A foot tall bottle made with a golden brown glass that resembled the same bottles Rollan drank from, only this one didn't smell completely awful. Instead it smelled of the plants he blended and mixed with meats and water.

"Naturally boosted Valerian, Passionflower, Chamomile and blended deer meat boiled in water with Ginseng and other things I can't pronounce. Something tells me this is going to be nasty as fuck...."

"[Dear god. Something tells me you're right...]" Arne said in a grossed out tone as Claude broke off the neck of the bottle barbarically and shook up the blended chunky fluid inside. "[That looks like Harpy shit...]"

"..Yummy." He said with a sigh-- making the word sound odd in his beastial voice before asking, "What is that term they use in situations like this?"

"[Erhm....I believe you're referring to the phrase, Bottoms up?]"

"Right." He said while he poured a bit in a bowl for Frosty before raising the rest to his maw while the Phantom Wolves watched silently.

"Bottoms up.."

As soon as the fluid hit his tongue, he felt the urge to throw up. It was warm and full of chunks of partially raw chewy meat. The taste was like drinking the fluids at the bottom of a dumpster mixed with grass. But, the urge to get through the night allowed him to power through and consume it all.

By the time the bottle fell in the grass next to him, he looked over and found Frosty with a similar dazed and disgusted expression. It was already working...but so was something else.

The sky above had darkened, and a new light danced across the clouds and increasingly more visible stars. It was almost time.

As he turned his head to the east, he found it.

Just above the barren trees that seemed to stretch as long as eternity. Just on the horizon of all that. A whitish blue porous globe rose with an uncanny planetary intensity.

The Full Moon.

It looked the same as last time, he half expected to go nuts any second. Only now, all he felt was tired.

Even as his Lupine eyes picked up on the magical whisping blue tendrils that coated the Moon and snaked out across the sky to reach the earth, he still couldn't help but lay against the grass and watch.

Watch the predatory blue sun of the night rise.

As his eyes slowly began to close and his skin started to steam, he could already hear the distant sounds of chaos growing by the second.

For once, sleep seemed like a good idea. Something told him that meant he wouldn't get much of it.....