CHPT 299: Historical Enemies.....

The forest was moving, now aided by the magical touch of another...violence was near....

Nature exploded behind them once more, the women checked again in a fright and found nothing. Immediately after, the Phantom Wolves burst into movement to their left, snaking through the forest in a flash.

They relaxed after the second fright, assuring themselves that it was a pack of Wolves. Wolves wasn't Rollan's forte. But it was Claude's-- it was also his signal.

As soon as they relaxed-- he could practically feel a portion of the tension that hung on the air release with their quieted sighs. He filed the gap with his own.

In a flash, he burst from behind the tree he was using as cover with his spear raised and sent it at the woman to the left in a whistling flash of silver.

As soon as it left his hands it blasted through the air and sunk into her stomach with enough force to lift her off her feet and pin her to the tree behind her with a sick sounding thunk.

Movement exploded to life from all parties.

Frosty burst from the bushes, fearlessly attacking the most dominant of the women, the Phantom Wolves flanked the one in black on the right and Claude moved to finish the woman-- Monster pinned to the tree.

As he did, flaming green javelins whistled through the dark like shooting stars, sinking into trees and bushes in a chaotic lightshow of green. As he approached his target, she moved, somehow her features began to twist and morph with every further inch she moved to get off the spear. He didn't let the sight slow him, he moved faster.

During her gruesome task of pulling herself off the spear, two javelins sunk into her chest, stopping her midway and giving Claude the opening to lunge at her.

FWOO!!

His hand gripped her throat and slammed her back into the tree-- ripping her stomach on the blade of the spear again.

CRACK!

The back of her skull crunched on the bark, but she was still fighting and letting out screams that were sounding more inhuman by the second.

He cut off her sounds when he removed his hand from her throat, holding the bloody pieces of her jugular in his palm like the remnants of a crushed fruit.

As the life faded from her eyes, his own were drawn elsewhere.

[+150 EXP]

The beginnings of battle carried on in slow motion with the violently grotesque- yet fluid, change of pace.

He found his eyes stapled to Frosty who was in the midst of charging at the woman in yellow. He leapt at least fifteen feet across to reach her, his jaws snapping and reaching in the midst of his jump as she soared above him. She jumped-- and odd response to being attacked. Even odder was the way she continued to rise...one...two...four..ten feet straight into the air.

The woman in black did the same to avoid the Phantom Wolves flanking assault.

And as they rose, with every inch, they changed.

The winds ruffled their toga's, making it difficult for him to realize the way it shrunk and spread into a covering of feathers that wrapped their bodies like fur. Or the way the skin on their once human legs dried and hardened into natural armoring that climbed up to their knees and spread across their razor sharp taloned feet that reassembled something closer to hands in shape with each exaggerated scaly digit.

Before they could descend from their glorious leaps, the final remnants of the togas that once flowed off their backs exploded into a massive sea of feathers that spread and caught the wind to carry them even higher. The change from fabric to appendage was so fluid he almost didn't realize they were wings.

Movement regained it's natural speed as they flapped their wings higher and higher before eventually settling and wrapping their deadly talons around the branches of taller trees to look down at them all.

The woman once wearing a yellow dress was now an avian monstrous hybrid with feathers like the sun and eyes that matched. Like two orbs of flame, they scanned over the ground below before settling on the one Claude killed before it could change.

Immediately, her head swiveled like an owls and faced him and a horrifyingly unnatural angle.

"You...you just certified your own death, HUMAN!" As she roared, her face finished the final pieces of her change from woman to Monster. The once beautifully curly puff of hair that exploded from the back of her braided head blossomed into a collection of yellow and red fiery feathers that only seemed to make her face more intense as her eyebrows jutted out further from her face, along with her nose and jaw to an undeniably hideous degree...almost like parts of her face were trying to form a beak.

FWOOSH!

"GIVE ME THE DRUID!....SKRAWWWWK!!!"

FWOO!

Claude's reflexes saved him with a last second duck as the one in black divebombed him in a flash looking like an oversized humanoid crow with its coal black feathers.

As soon as he avoided the first attack, movement from the tree ahead caused him to roll out of the way of another attack.

FWOOO!

SWIP!

The wind was sliced to shreds at the back of his neck by the yellow monsters talons.

"GIVE US THE ARMAMENTS!!!!" She roared in an entirely new voice. "GIVE US REVENGE!"

They occupied the skies like two giant birds of prey, their wingbeats shook the trees with every flapping gust that carried their screams to his sensitive ears.

Battle had just begun.

Movement resurged with an intense rush. Claude took off in a sprint, ripping his spear from the tree before continuing deeper within to lead them away from Rollan. The pack followed.

So did the Monsters above.

For a while they just sailed above screaming obscenities and wailing mindlessly. Then, they dove.

FWOSH!

He could hear them cut through the canopy behind him as he and his pack traversed through the forest.

Along the way, a fallen over tree blocked his path. Using it as an opportunity to look behind him, he vaulted the obstacle and turned just in time to see the fiery yellow Monster barreling towards him.

The two massive wings at her back closed, no longer ripping through branch and bush as she spun through the cluttered forest to reach him. The sight was almost beautiful until she raised her head to look at him with her talon clawed fingers outstretched.

"AHHHHH!!"

Claude raised his spear in a defensive two handed grip just in time to block the talons.

As she gripped his spear and they flew through the air, he used his strength to turn them both before smashing his foot into her chest.

THUD!

"guH!"

The kick knocked the wind out of her and sent her flying backward to smash into a tree while he hit the ground rolling like a tumbleweed.

He was back on his feet in a flash with his spear raised while Gil shot at the monstrous woman in yellow as she clumsily took to the skies once again.

Before he could take his eyes off her and get moving again, something crashed into his side, knocking him off his feet in a flash.

Only, he wasn't hitting the ground.

When the sting of the talons in his arms finally made itself apparent, he roared in pain.

"Give! Us! The! Druid! SKRAWWWWK!" The one in black screeched at him as she flew him through the forest at breakneck speeds.

"Fuck you!" He snarled before headbutting the Monster.

Crack!

The sudden attack startled and shook her into letting go, causing him to bullet into the bark of a tree hard enough to remove the dying leaves above.

For a moment everything was black.

[85% HP Remaining, (471/555)]

"[Claude....Claude-- Wake up!... You won't be given too many breaks out here.]"

His senses returned as quickly as they'd left. Arne's voice rang out within his mind and he found himself watching Frosty and Shadow hold the Monster's leg in their jaws while they shook her violently in spite of her attempts to flap away. Gil stood beside them firing off javelins into the air to keep the other at bay.

When he finally tried to get up, he felt the blood leaking from the back of his head drip against the bark. His vision still shook.

"[Do you know what they are?]"

"....Harpies. Monsters from the Greco-Roman Mythos...."

As soon as Claude said it, a memory went off in his mind.

"Sorry about the madness, Monsieur...Satyr's and the like don't appreciate my presence.."

SHLCK!

Frosty snarled in pain as the Harpy's freed talon grazed his flesh, forcing him to let go.

As it's wings pulled it towards the sky, they began moving once again, chasing and being chased by the Monsters above, now angered by the damage dealt to their own.

In the time spent running through the dark, Claude's mind started to work, pulling him into deeper thinking while he ran and watched the skies with all of his senses. His mind moved at speeds that matched the Harpies as he thought about the significance of Rollan's words.

"They don't like his presence....Satyr's and Harpies...regular Centaurs came on the night of the Full Moon as well...."

"[What do they have in common, Claude?]" Arne asked under the earsplitting screeches of the Harpies above.

Claude reached for his Lunar Artifact in his pocket as the realization dawned on him, "Mythical origin....Roman Monsters hate Druids..."

Despite this realization, his heart sank to the pits of his stomach with every second his hand spent fishing through his pocket.

"Shit!"

"[What?]"

Claude's eyes panned up to the sky. He found the Monsters flying above in flashing images as the forest canopy split in uneven bursts. With every opening, he found his eyes fastening on a dangling light hanging from the black Harpies talons. Under the stretch of night, it glowed like the moon. The same way it would glow in the presence of the sun.

"I've got your neckllllacee...." The Harpie sang before screeching mindlessly.

"[Oh dear god. Don't tell me...]"

"Arne, she has my Lunar Artifact..."

Before he could speak any more on the matter, a flash of yellow blasted through the forest like a falling ball of fire...