Willow had only once seen a ringcat up close, and that was during the siege of Aughal. The worst day of her life. Still, she knew of the monster and could recognize the markings on a different frame, like with Daniel’s alternate form. This was the same, and yet different. What she saw would make normal ringcats look tame by comparison.
Before, she would have called what Daniel turned into a fusion of man and beast, but that wasn’t accurate in the face of this new creature. It was barely bipedal, with long arms and legs that bore muscles which were evident through the fur. The top of the head was flatter and followed the curve of the spine to end in a longer snout. The fangs and claws had lengthened, and all four limbs ended in large paws rather than hands and feet. The boots on the creature’s feet were barely constraining them now and were constantly trying to repair the damage from the claws piercing them. Its armor would have probably torn off as well if not for that enchantment.
It raised its head and roared, the sound hurting Willow’s ears despite it being halfway up the wing. Her heart stopped for several seconds before she fully understood what she was sensing. He still has his soul. Or, no, he… She couldn’t see people’s souls with her bond, only the spirits within monsters and beings that solely inhabited the Astral as Hunter currently did. Willow had no idea what had happened to Daniel, only that there was one person they needed to quickly get him to before-
“Gods!” An exclamation from above, the captain again. “The reports were accurate. Everyone, prioritize breaking open those pods! I shall distract the fresh spawn. Face me, coward!”
There was a force to the Knights words that almost bent Willow to obey. It wasn’t a directly hostile command power, but she was three levels below this Knight and the disparity strengthened whatever he was using to coordinate the Blessed here. The influence reminded her of Kahvin, however, and the anger that memory invoked was enough to push it aside. “He’s still in there, don’t fight him!”
The Knight was about to reply before Daniel, affected by the taunt power, lept into the air. If the captain was surprised at how he’d actually reach him he didn’t show it, instead standing in midair again and drawing his sword. Light flashed a few times across it and Willow was mortified, yet too far away to cast a shield. Tlara wasn’t getting in the air either, she was frozen still at the sight of Daniel while her whitespring continued to suppress the horde leader.
If the Knight hadn’t been surprised by Daniel’s jump, he was when the assailant adjusted his course to avoid the arc of the blade. Monsters didn’t use enchanted items and aside from passively wearing armor, the feral demi-ringcat didn’t look like something that would naturally have flight powers. A claw tried to catch Knight as he passed, but it met a barrier that reminded Willow of her own, only far stronger.
Once more, Willow was caught between two choices. Intervene with that duel somehow, or continue assisting in destroying this abominable spirit and its physical shell? She and her sister had opted for the path that would save the most before, but they each had their reasons for what they did next.
Tlara gave her an eye roll and then cut the breath attack of her whitespring. Its effect didn’t need to be continually applied to work, and Willow hoped the larger monster couldn’t cleanse itself again. With about ten other mortals attacking it now, they could handle cutting in to free people, though the flesh of the domes seemed more resilient than it had a right to be.
“Stop!” Willow shouted again, Tlara taking them both up to the vicinity of the fight. Daniel was ignoring everything besides the Knight, and he showed no signs of any of his former powers. That he had another dramatic transmutation power that changed them around gave her hope that whatever the horde leader had done could be reversed, but the fact that she could see his astral presence worried her greatly.
“I shall do my best to incapacitate,” the Knight replied while standing his air, prolonging whatever was keeping him in place, “But I shall not allow this creature to roam free.” Daniel came at him again with little if any guile, and the Knight raised his free hand as if to catch his head when the fangs went for his throat. The face of the creature began to turn despite fierce struggling, and the Knight had to brace his hand with his sword arm to fully throw off the attack.
In the next second, he’d managed to fully turn around and slash out at Daniel as he passed within centimeters, the monster himself unable to claw past the barrier around the Knight. It didn’t look like he’d used an active ability, and yet Daniel was slowed for a few extra seconds as his attack missed.
The Knight struck Daniel on the arm where he wasn’t armored, and the attack managed to cut to bone. While the wound began to heal tremendously fast, the area glowed with an orange light. As Daniel fell, his arm was hoisted up to restrain him as he tried to move away.
Willow urged Tlara to hold off for a moment as she saw the Knight reform his wings, only to dance around the half-monster and deliver another deep cut with every strike. The orange from the original cut was fading by the fifth, but the series of rapid attacks had left Daniel immobilized in mid-air.
Then, as the captain came for the head with the flat of his blade, Daniel was somehow able to maneuver an arm to grab at him. To make the passing strikes, the Knight had to revert his wings and unsheath his sword on the approach. He moved fast, but seemed unable to adjust his course once he committed.
The barrier remained around the Knight, not a centimeter away from his feathers, but Willow could see it crack slightly as Daniel wrapped a paw around one arm and gripped fiercely. Lifting the Knight, Daniel brought their heads together with a loud crack.
The shield continued to hold, but the roar that followed it up still went straight through. Willow saw Tlara grimace while feeling fine herself and realized it had been loud enough for her bond to consider it damage to pass on to her sister. The Knight had it worse, but managed to summon a spectral shield that hit Daniel in the chest and knocked him away before he could try to bite through to the neck.
“It fights without reserve,” the Captain commented, a little louder than he probably meant to. He glanced down to where the other mortals were having difficulty with the horde leader. It couldn’t do much in its current state, though both he and Willow assumed it had recalled the horde below after getting locked down. “Somehow, it knows I must continue to channel Stasis Strike for the effect to persist. We do not have the time for me to draw this out.”If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Daniel was rapidly storming back to the Knight, though the movement was a little clumsy compared to the first jump. He could still make use of the winged boots, but he lacked his previous experience or wherewithal to extend the wings still on his back. “Let us handle him!” Willow shouted, both the Knight and Tlara giving her an incredulous look. “The people down there need your help more. That’s what we need to kill.”
“It is taunted, and will remain so unless-“ the Knight’s next words were cut off as he jerked away from a streak of lightning. It hit Daniel, however, evoking another growl from him. Tlara had changed her mind after figuring out what they’d need to do to make the plan work. The Knight looked between them again and sighed. “Your spirit is admirable.”
“Hardly,” Willow said to herself. The still unnamed spirit within her shrunk as much as it could in the metaphysical sense whenever anything else was nearby, though it had grown to trust her. Based on what she’d seen so far she didn’t have a scrap of hope the power it gave her would protect against Daniel. Then again, if she had to use her power at all she’d have failed. Willow couldn’t truly fight anything at this point without Tlara’s protection, but reaching people? That was something she’d practiced every day of her life.
She could almost hear Tlara’s laughter as the wyvern dove away from Daniel, encouraging him to leave the Knight. They were also leaving everyone in the horde leader in the hands of the remaining mortals, including Janice, but they’d made their decision. Willow scanned the sky and found a small island below them, pointing it out to Tlara.
They made it before Daniel caught up to them, though it was close. Willow jumped off of Tlara, careful to stay within the protective radius. Daniel was falling toward the wyvern claws first, though as before with the Knight there was too much simplicity in the charge. Tlara was able to batter him away with a wing, her self-cast buffs enough to overcome the momentum. Still, she heard her sister grunt with effort and wondered how strong Daniel could be like that. His normal bestial form was fearsome, but Tlara had the level advantage both in form and class.
“Daniel!” Willow called out as he rolled to a stop, stepping in front of Tlara and holding out an arm to both of them. “It’s me. The other hunters are killing that thing up there. The town is safe. We’ll take you to Thomas and have this reversed. I know you’re still in there.” She tried to project as much confidence as she could, though there were parts of that she wasn’t entirely sure about. When she looked into Daniel’s eyes there were only red-tinged primal orbs reflecting voracious hatred of the world. Though, when they flicked to her, there was the slightest of changes.
All her bond with Tlara gave her was an insight into the Astral, and a limited one at that. She could perceive something in Daniel now where she couldn’t before, and it grew stronger when he saw her. Sharper. Willow made a guess and prayed she was right. “You have to calm down and come with us. If you’re like this, how will you ever bring Hunter back? You found the person inside of him and brought him out. You just need to do that again. I believe in you.”
She could feel Tlara’s eyes rolling behind her back, but in front of her Daniel had stopped. The presence inside of him was twisting, growing, and all she had was the belief that this was a good thing. The air grew staticky as Tlara began charging a lightning attack, but it proved useless the moment she could no longer sense Daniel’s Astral presence.
The beast fell onto his knees. He began to shift, back straightening. Daniel didn’t entirely revert to his human form, but the moment he caught sight of his arm the fur and tail melted off to reveal the Artificer she’d first met. Now certain there was no danger, Willow ran forward and found that he was clutching his chest as if his heart was succumbing to illness. “Daniel!”
“What.” He looked up and seemed surprised to find her next to him. His eyes then caught the horde leader, which was in the process of dying despite all of its minions having returned from their assault on Pinion’s Point. Daniel wiped a suddenly sweaty brow and Willow could see he was trying hard to hold himself together. “What happened?”
Tlara snorted behind both of them, clearly having something to say, but Willow ignored her. “You don’t remember?”
“No, I-“ He looked up at the horde leader again and his voice carried a chill tone. “Oh. Oh no.” He grabbed at his chest again. “It did it. I thought it was bluffing.”
Willow put a hand on his shoulder. “You came back from it. If you can, anyone else it afflicted can as well.”
“Came back from what?” he asked, uncomprehending. “No, it’s still, I can identify that thing now. It corrupted my Spoke.”
Willow considered hiding the truth, but part of her was worried that if he didn’t know about that secondary transformation, it could trigger again unexpectedly. “When you came out of that monster, you were different. You looked far more like a monster than a person and you would have killed Tlara if I hadn’t stopped you.”
The wyvern circled so Willow could see her, just to glare. “Like Tak?” Daniel’s voice recaptured her attention, though it seemed a question aimed more at himself. He brought out his Focus and began inspecting it, grimacing at what he saw. “It did. Damn it, what does this mean?” The words she couldn’t read changed as he adjusted the image. “I’m not seeing that power on my list. It has to be bound to Beast Mode. That’s… that’s good.” He was calming down, though there was still an edge to his voice. “What about Ygazir?”
“Who?”
“The-“ Daniel gestured upward. “Sorry. That thing has a name.”
“Oh, they’re taking care of it. A name… I did sense a spirit in it.”
“One you’d want to capture?” he asked hesitantly.
Willow thought for a moment and shook her head. “I’ll try to save every one I can, but that one didn’t want to be saved.”
“It was working directly with the Origin Beast. It…” Daniel shook his head. “Thank you, Willow. Is everyone else ok?”
“The last I saw, yes. Khare and Khiat stayed behind to defend the town, but the horde got some of the people hiding in our compound and we followed.” She took a seat by him and looked up at the large monster someone had managed to cut a wing off of. “I think I’m going to get a lot of advancement potential from this.”
Daniel weakly chuckled. “I shouldn’t have gotten anything. Going off on my own, I can’t even blame that on Beast Mode. It just felt like the right thing to do and I didn’t want to put all of you at risk to do it. The plan wouldn''t have worked with anyone else there. The bond….”
Willow rubbed her shoulder when he trailed off. “It did work. The monsters didn’t get to us until half an hour after you said they would. The defense wouldn’t have gone as well if people had been caught out when it happened. Threst wouldn’t have known at all if you hadn’t spotted them in the first place.”
Daniel stood up, checking his equipment and frowning as he looked under his armor. “My clothes are shredded. I’m not going to have to enchant clothing now am I?”
Willow raised an eyebrow and said carefully, “You’re not troubled by what just happened?”
“One thing at a time,” he sighed. “We need to get back and make sure everyone’s safe. I doubt Aurus fell from two of those attacking, but the other outer settlements?”
“Two were overrun.” Willow stiffened as a new voice intoned grimly from empty space. The air shimmered, and a man emerged. The only definable aspect of him was the voice and a black cloak that wrapped around the front and back of the head, while the body within was only a darkness deeper than what garbed it. Willow couldn’t distinctly make out the shape of the person.
Daniel tried to say something, but though his mouth moved no words came out and she couldn’t lip read humans. She tried herself and found her words unchallenged. “Who are you?”
“There will be time for that later. The enemies of the Octyrrum move on this region.” The man gestured and a veil of darkness enveloped the entire island. “Now, we must discuss this war.”