An Unexpected Chill

This was not where he had intended to go. Granted, he had no way of controlling the Teleport Skill, given the fact that up until this moment, he had never used it. Added to that was the fact that right now was not the best time to be practicing his potential skills when there was a giant monster on the loose.

His blood froze in his veins as he looked at the creature and the heavy, hungry mouth that opened in front of him, the maw longer and deeper than he was tall or wide, which meant that if he were to fall inside, there would be no hope of escaping. But before he could even think of what to do, there was a sudden shriek from the Beast. Up close and personal as it was, Wes couldn't help but to reach up his hands to cover his ears, and even then he could feel the force of that alone nearly being enough to shatter his eardrums.

As the shriek died off, the creature shifted, raising its forelegs off the ground for a moment before hurtling them back down to the ground, aiming at shaking Wesley off and probably aiming to tear him apart with its claws. Luckily for him, even with the creature's plan coming to fruition, he had managed to ensure that he wouldn't fall. His hand gripped the creature's hide with considerable strength. He was applying High Impact to each finger, creating a claw-like grip with his hands, and as he did so, he was able to keep hold on the creature's back. Or top. Whatever this was.

The Beast's body writhed a bit as it tried to shake him off further, but to no avail. The grip that he had was more than enough to keep him from flying off, and as he realized that... with it s unnatural anatomy, there was nothing that the creature could do to get him. Emboldened by this fact, he gave a small breath as his other hand began to glow with an empty grey energy. The Void. He held it for a moment, before he placed his hand against the creature's side, finding no reason to do more damage than necessary as he did so.

As soon as the hand touched it, a series of confusing images opened up into Wesley's mind, and the young man's eyes narrowed in sudden pain as he realized that his touch on the Beast was not as easy as it had been for the others. All he had heard in growing up around them was that the Beasts had a Framework of their own, and that some of them could be incredibly dangerous if they learned to employ this.

There had been thankfully rare few Beasts which had been that intelligent. Most of them, like this one, simply threw its weight around in some attempt to dominate the battlefield without actually needing to utilize anything more than that. But the ones who had were even more terrifying, able to unleash their Framework at levels that most rarely dreamed of.

However, as his hand moved against the Beast, he could tell that this wasn't quite the same as what he had expected. He'd only tested out his talent on his allies, Gustave, and then just a few minutes ago, the giant dead firebird. He hadn't done this before, and he wondered if perhaps he should have gotten some practice, somehow, before diving right in.

The searing, agonizing cold that came with imparting Elemental Framework into others is what had greeted him when he'd touched the creature, rather than the comforting warmth he had come to expect. It lanced up his arm and up to his brain. It was like a spike of raw energy pierced up through his mind, freezing everything in a numbing cold that seemed to take the feeling from his entire body.

Still, the creature writhed at the touch, beginning to shudder as it struggled to keep itself standing under Wesley's Devour Energy Skill. It was at this point that, even through the agonizing, burning cold that he felt at touching the creature, he heard the shouts of his brother and some others down below, indicating that they were going to take action of some kind, or so he imagined.

His world felt devoid of just about everything as the Framework from the Beast flowed into himself, and it was only here, as he was doing this, that he realized that there might be unintentional effects from his action. He briefly recalled his talk with Sasha, about how the Devouring of their Frameworks had not only changed the way they thought about things, but also himself as well. Who knew what effects there might be from him taking on this particular Beast's elemental Framework?

Yet the time for questions was not now, as his hand continued to pull at the various energies that he felt within, pulling them into himself. The monstrous Beast below him shuddered- either from what his allies were doing, or from his own actions- and there was a powerful jerk in its body, one that sent him off-balance. The connection between his hand and the Beast's was broken, and all at once, he could feel that numbing cold leaving him behind, as if the heater had just kicked on all of a sudden without warning, sending a gout of heated air around him.

His other grip broke as well, his fingers gripping the creature's hide falling away as the muscle spasm through the monstrous thing below him tore his grip away, and for a moment, he almost felt as if he were flying. It was only as a shadow overtook him that he realized that not only was he not flying, but he was falling. And if his eyes were processing information correctly, he was falling into the maw of the Beast itself. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of teeth bore down on him as he fell, and Wesley merely closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable.