CHPT 351: Fangs. Another Path to Power, Another Moment of Mystery...

"Dammit!....I hate snakes, man."

"You know, I know." Claude replied flatly as they continued to crank out pull up's on the branches of two oak tree's that sat opposite of each other.

Ursula's heavy weight and lack of fluid finesse caused her pull ups to come out aggressive and angry looking, forcing the branch to shake along with her long fiery auburn ponytail as she forced out a reply, "Well....do we know what kind of Snake it is? If it isn't HellBred I doubt it'll be as problematic as the last one."

"No. It'll be worse. The Plated Snakes in the Redwoods were weak enough to die at the hands of Teens before their Rebirth.....HellBred or not, this one will undoubtedly be stronger. And it's a snake.....it'll be as close to the ones in the desert as we've seen so far. Actually, this could be an absolute nightmare when you consider everything..."

"So much for trying to be optimistic...I really wish you didn't speak that into existence." Ursula huffed before letting herself hang from the branch to relieve her exhausted muscles that were pumped and pressing against her black turtleneck sweater, "On the bright side, we can think of it as a second go. That snake kicked our asses last time. I'd like a shot at redemption."

"Same. If we play our cards right that's exactly what we could get." Claude replied before swiftly changing from pull up's to muscle up's.

Ursula's eyes went icy with her competitive urges rising to the surface as she forced herself to continue the duration of seemingly endless calisthenics.

They spent the next few seconds letting out grunts and effortful huffs before Ursula spoke again, "Sucks that we won't have an Archer though."

Claude grunted, "Ursula. You're invalidating Gil's existence, and he doesn't enjoy it."

Gil agreed by letting out a croaking growl and slowly snapping at her feet while she continued her set.

"Hehe...sorry. You know what I meant scary crocodile cheetah-dog thingy...." Ursula replied warmly.

Gil didn't seem to care for the misnomer and continued to roam the forest with his nose to the floor.

"We'll have plenty of chances to have a second go at snakes with Warren....and Hexenbiests with Maris and Isaac. But this one's all on us." Claude replied before dropping from the branch.

Ursula followed on accident due to her psychotic style of pull ups causing the branch to break and let her fall to the floor beside him, "Weak ass tree..." She grumbled while getting up and tossing the wooden splinter.

Before it could even hit the floor, a blast of green fire hit the portion of the tree where the branch broke allowing Claude to repair the damages in the blink of an eye.

"Anyway, why are we doing this again? I mean it sounds like a very exact mission, why do we need fangs? Only thing I can think of is artwork due to the hollow nature of them." Ursula asked while dusting herself off and dropping to join Claude in push ups.

"Sounds about right. We need them for something Rollan called the Ancient Markings. But, that's all I know...since he likes to be vague for no reason. while he drinks his pisswater--"

"imbécile!....This is not pisswater, goatboy. This is....divine spirits." Rollan replied out of nowhere, practically scaring Ursula and the rest of the pack out of their skins.

Claude concluded his set of push up's at fifty-- barely feeling the buzz in his chest or arms, as he rolled over and found himself looking up at the middle aged Druidic Drunk who sat on the branch he was previously doing pull up's on, over ten feet above the ground.

He rocked his feet without a care in the world as he drank from his bottle.

"I'm not even going to ask.....I'm just not."

Rollan nodded and scratched the smooth dark almond colored skin of his face, "That's because you don't usually ask the right ones, Monsieur....would you like a go, femme-bête?"

Once Ursula got her heart rate back to normal levels she replied flatly, "Oh I'm good. I'm still trying to balance my own...stuff. If I try to uncover all the mysteries you bring, my brain's going to melt.....it's already almost there."

Frosty walked up and pressed his nose into the side of her face following her words as if he were trying to check.

Claude got up off the cold grass floor just as Rollan landed in front of him, driving his dull sword-cane into the dirt with a muffled stabbing sound. In response, Claude could've sworn he felt the ground shift beneath his feet, but when he looked to Rollan, the man stood hunched over grabbing at his sore back with seemingly no knowledge of the situation. Weird.

The two looked at each- other for a few seconds before Claude broke the silence, "We're ready."

"Good. Make sure you finish it before night falls. I don't think I need to explain why, no?"

"Demons. Pretty self explanatory. We'll get back as soon as possible with your fangs." Claude said before moving past him towards the tree-house where his gear resided.

"The fangs aren't for me, Monsieur." Rollan said under his breath as the pack left the forest and prepared to leave for the desert.