CHPT 326: A Glimpse of What it Means, Alpha's Power....

Sunday Evening, December 16th, 2240...

Training. It was what the two young Lupines did for the entire weekend alongside the rest of their growing pack, testing Ursula's new strengths, limits and even revamping formations they ran as a duo back at the University of the Phoenix. They did anything and everything they could, for Claude it was paramount that she was absolutely ready for what was to come-- he had an obligation to make her survive like never before. Ursula had no idea of his plans, but she fed off his urgency and determination to make them grow as a team, causing the weekend to be one of pure purpose.

Claude worked like a maniac, shortening his usual four hour sleep to three to squeeze out every drop of progress he could. Work as a home protector, training as a Druidic Warrior, experiencing what it means to teach another.

In the beginning he was overwhelmed. Hell, his mind broke. But, he could feel himself relaxing. Training made him relax, because training meant power.

Power. It's importance was unavoidable. And in pursuit of growing closer to the aspect of power, the pack found themselves running through the dense vibrant woodland surrounding Rollan's home in search of a familiar something they sensed.

Not something they sensed as Lupines, but as HellSlayers.

The touch of the desert had come to welcome Ursula to their dry lands.

***

The forest was soundless, silenced by the entrance of the outsiders that corrupted any and everything. As his connection to nature grew, he could feel just how vile and putrid their presence made him feel even at the distance they shared. It was like they had an aura of evil that his honed in senses couldn't avoid in any aspect, forcing him want nothing more than to remove them from the forest.

He moved faster, leaping and bounding through the woodlands in little more than a pair of unrecognizable tattered pants that fit like a disheveled skirt and his two short-spears. Behind the rest of the pack, Ursula followed, blending into the darkness in her black form fitting clothing and heavy battle axe Claude had stolen from a certain Centaur Chieftain not long ago.

That was her first noticeable difference. Speed. She was fast-- worlds faster than before she was changed, but the boost wasn't the same.

Either way, she still kept up, skidding to a stop beside him as he halted next to a thick pine tree and squatted to watch something nobody else could see.

"Up ahead, at the river...eight of them.....I don't see a noticeable Alpha. Could be more further ahead that are beyond my vision." Claude whispered as he tightened the blindfold over his eyes.

Ursula grunted a sound of understanding.

"Tell me what you smell."

Ursula placed her hand on his shoulder from behind and leaned over him, getting ahead of the wide berth of the pine tree to let her newly sensitive nose take in the scents downwind.

She waited in silence, sniffing repeatedly before squatting back behind him, "I smell rat. But it's different. HellBred DireRats?"

Claude nodded, "Close enough. They're HellBred Ratmen, I think it's harder to tell because the scents of Demon override the small difference between Ratman and DireRat."

"Dammit." Ursula whispered to herself, "So, what's the plan? Currently we outnumber them....but the HellBred are strong...." She shivered in remembrance of the HellBred HexenBiest that nearly mopped the floor with them less than a month ago.

Claude held out his short-spears for Frosty to hold in his jaws and spoke a command to Ashe, causing the Phantom Wolves to merge into the nightmarish Phantom Legion, "The plan is simple. We have the high-ground. We can at least injure a few from a distance before getting into the thick of it. I need target practice anyway.."

After voicing his plan, he stood up and manipulated the branches above him into twisting and sharpening into the ideal throwing spear with a heavy blade that would slide in easy and rip out brutally. His newest avian ally inspired the design.

Gil stood beside him preparing himself. The black quills that ran down the Hounds back steamed while it's open cuts and gills spit out tufts of green flame.

Ursula caught onto what they were doing and began freezing and shaping the moisture in the air around her in a straight line until she held a thick ice pike. As it sat in her hands, frigid winds and snowflakes fell from the weapon like a beautifully deadly winters aura.

"Alright. First one to hit get's a whole buck to themselves."

Claude was so caught offguard by the shockingly playful statement that he stayed in a state of awkward silence as he emerged from the forest and to to take aim at their opponents.

His lacking social skills never failed to announce themselves....even in the worst of times.

"[How nice, she's making one of your existential crisis' a trivial matter.]" Arne commented as he slid up his blindfold and spotted the Alpha Ratman.

As all Alpha Ratmen, it looked just like the rest-- only larger and more muscled. The curse of Hell only added to that, making the rat appear almost beefy, but he knew beneath the dense greasy black fur and loose skin, it was all muscle and hellfire.

The massive Monster cut through the clutter of it's Mischief and crouched down to take in a mouthful of clean river water, giving Claude and Ursula a perfect view of how hell twisted it's features. The rat-like face seemed more monstrous and less humanoid with an exaggerated set of jaws studded with thick flat cleaver-like buck teeth made for relentless gnawing and chopping.

What made the sight of it's mouth worse was the fact that it had no lips, the dark thin furred skin of it's face simply flowed and seamlessly blended into it's unclean black gums and crooked flat teeth. The creature raised it's head from the water and sniffed the air, unable to move it's fleshy nose due to the thick black horn jutting from it in a fashion similar to a Rhinoceros....maybe more like a Tricerotops due to the two extra horns coming out of it's head.

He could feel their wrongness even clearer than before, causing a low growl to emanate from his throat as he lowered his blindfold and took aim, feeling the steam rise from his bubbling shoulders and back muscles.

The forest hit a new low of silence-- one that the Ratmen on the other side of the river sensed as their hackles rose and nostrils expanded to scent the air.

Nothing.....

FWIP!....FWIPFWIP!

In a flash, three projectiles exploded from the forest above the group of Ratmen, whistling through the winds straight for them.

Claude's spear hit it's target first, landing off center in the Alpha's midsection, barely deep enough to do any serious damage. Ursula's ice pike hit next smacking into the shoulder of a nearby Mischief member hard enough to knock it off it's feet and land back first in the water. From where they stood he could hear the crackling spread of ice beneath the splashing waves. A sound that was quickly interrupted by Gil's flaming quill stabbing straight into the head of a Ratman on the opposite side of Ursula's target.

SHNK!

As soon as the quill hit, the green flames ate away at the creatures head as it screamed and rolled through the grass madly before dying, leaving it's steaming skull to lay bare in the snowy grass.

[+120 EXP]

Before any human language could be spoken, Claude was on the move with his short-spears held tightly as he leapt out into the open, soaring through the air towards the stunned Demonic Hybrids with Ursula, Frosty, Gil and the Phantom Legion in tow.

As he traveled through the winds, slowly transforming inch by inch in response to the rise of adrenaline, he had the most bizarre urge fill his entire being. It felt like a foreign power he didn't always have, growing and swelling within him.....like an angry storm cloud on the verge of spitting lightning down into earths floor. The power grew and grew with every second he spent in the air until he found himself raising his head to the sky and roaring.

The sound was new-- even as a Lupine. Something as Wild as Nature itself and as menacing as it's greatest monsters. Even as it ripped out of his throat, it felt like something that wasn't his own. Something magical and tied to a history he knew little of.

When he hit the ground the idea of it being magical suddenly didn't seem so inaccurate.The link that connected him to Ursula and the others was wider-- clearer than ever. He was glowing. An aura of his own power laced with Wild Magic, he could feel it. It tinged his skin and muscles like lightning...

When he found Ursula, frosty and the Phantom Legion closing in behind him, they were too. Aura's on fire with tiny fissures of verdant magic within....

DING!

[Commander's Howl Active!]