Icarus Awakens

The predator stalked in the night air. By mortal standards it was a child, despite all that had happened in the past month. However, this ringcat had Grown and in more than the way common to its kind. Did he have a soul? Neither he nor his friend knew for certain. What was clear was the hunger, fresh again for the night’s hunt.

While Daniel struggled to reclaim himself, and then to enchant for the villagers, Hunter did only two things: slept and hunted. He was in his prime. Ringcats did not normally rest every day, exhaustion being a necessity of survival. Hunter had a protected shelter, and now, a hunting partner.

They’d traveled for an hour to reach these fields. It was the farthest they’d gone, and their third night together. Finding meaningful prey that wasn’t the target of others meant going some distance away due to the recent scourgings. Every night meant danger was further and further from the village.

It wouldn’t last. Hunter and Tak understood this and knew each other felt the same. The feathered hunter was one the ringcat had been fond of since the beginning, in a way that had to be from the magic Daniel’s kind used. This would have bothered Hunter if Tak had tried to misuse it, but instead, he simply used it like a smile. A way to make a good first impression.

What had won Hunter over was the companionship. Until now, he had roamed alone despite Daniel’s best efforts. Tak did what even he couldn’t: share in the experience. Not as a phantom mind, but as another being. These primal hours had been Hunter’s alone until this moment. It touched on a part of him he hadn’t known how to describe until his awakening. Hunter had another friend.

Tak didn’t mean the same to him as Daniel, of course. That was a bond whose importance was underlined and overwritten with magic pinned to the core of their beings. No, but Tak did treat him as a person, and the bird man didn’t have to be told to. Maybe that was another power, as he and Tak didn’t have any problems communicating despite not sharing the same means of speech.

Hunter didn’t care about any of that. It was a power that was responsible for his friendship with Daniel too! What was important was the hunt and Growth. He was close again, and he understood the coming danger. Fear soaked everything in the village like nothing Hunter had ever sensed before. Every day it grew stronger as each day brought them closer to that confrontation.

He hadn’t fought a dragon before, or anything flying beyond sparkbats. Hunter was at the point where he could conceptualize how that would go. Poorly for him, even with the ability that was temporarily taking the place of the one that framed creatures in light. There was no knowing what would happen when he Grew, except that he would be stronger. He had to be stronger if he wanted to protect Daniel and, more immediately pressing, Tak.

Not that the bird man needed it. Tak was stronger than him. Not just in the technical way Daniel was but in a real way. On the hunt last night he’d picked up a rock to hit an armored, rolling creature. That had cracked the shell enough to expose the meat for Hunter, in addition to killing it outright. Tak had used the paws that looked like his to do this. Something else that strengthened the kinship and almost let Hunter believe he was part of a pack.

They were close to their next quarry. Tak and Hunter were after those monsters who were also active at this time, knowing the fights would be less one sided. Did this make a difference? Maybe, or maybe it just made things more interesting. They could afford more risk here. Both healed themselves far faster than normal creatures and could cover each other if necessary.

He was in the front. Despite Tak’s strength and affinity to nature, Hunter’s senses were the better of the two. Maybe the better of any one of the mortals. What Daniel called his Keen Sense feature allowed him to, at nearly all times, keep track of his surroundings. There were limits to this that Hunter was only beginning to appreciate. He hadn’t discovered them when he was a mindless, cowering thing that stayed out of dangerous areas.

The thing that had been called Ringcat would never have done what Hunter was doing. The prey were six, half were stronger than he, and he was leading them towards the group of monsters. Beasts, of course. The only non-beast monster Hunter had was the ephemeral frozen thing, which had probably used its ability to evade sight to haunt the other creatures and steal their prey. He didn’t know if he could consume those things that fell far outside of his nature to Grow, and Hunter wasn’t looking to find out.

Hunter honed in on the scents again to solidify his impression of the prey tonight. Daniel had gotten better in their training sessions, but not to the point where he’d fully come to appreciate what Hunter’s nose could do. He breathed deeply, and selectively. It was like how the eye focused on near or distant images, only Hunter picked out specific air being carried from their targets’ position.

There were no proper words for what the wind told Hunter, none that he knew at least. Maybe the device Daniel carried could describe it, but only if the Artificer could find the right entry. No, there were no proper words, but there were words. Slick like rain, which meant scales. A biting stench, which could be poison or some rot used as a weapon. Scent wasn’t the only thing Hunter could use either. He heard claws scraping the ground evenly, no hint that they’d retract like his. Gentle whistling in the air, not from any mouth but from a fast tail. There wasn’t any sound from that area that could be considered breathing. Light frames, then, or his prey wasn’t tired enough to audibly inhale.

A picture formed in his mind painted by scent and sound. A six-limbed creature, including the tail. Those on his level were smaller than he, judging by how the sounds were spaced out. They were predators, for they were stalking with intent rather than for survival. Just like him.

Hunter glanced at Tak, who was moving stealthily behind him. He bared his teeth and lashed his tail pointedly. The full impression Hunter had gathered couldn’t be mimed, but Tak got the gist and nodded. The changes Tak used when fighting had already been made, mouth contorted to bear fangs like his and sharp claws growing from furred hands.

“After you,” Tak said, voice deeper than the faintly melodic tenor he normally spoke with. Rasping and deep, qualities granted by his transformation, though the intent behind them remained the same. Tak was smiling, voice equally joyful. It was a feeling shared in Hunter, an echo of revelry.

The six stridor scorpions, three young and three adult, were ambling through the dark fields of the Thormundz region. Their kind did not bear the affinity for lightning borne by many creatures in the region. Two of their number had been spawned during the disturbance of the Upswell. Two had become six as the invasive species feasted across the plains. Given time, they would reproduce further in their way, break off into smaller groups, and spread like scattered seeds. Their pursuers were unaware of what they’d accomplish should they destroy all of the scorpions. If they knew, they likely wouldn’t change their intent.

Each of the monsters had five legs arranged like a star pointing backward, tipped with sharp claws. The mouths were framed by piercing mandibles that could bypass normal armor. The true threat was the stingers, arcing off the back tail like the animal variant. Bulbs of flesh gathered just before the stinger emerged from the tip. The adults had larger and more of these indicating a greater reserve of the particular substance contained within.

Their strength, compared to the two closing, was both in numbers and sight. Darkness was almost nothing to the creatures that normally lurked underground or in dark bogs. Tak and Hunter had agility, surprise, and their powers, making the fight favor them. This was no surprise. The two were looking for a challenge, not a desperate struggle.

When they were a minute from the six patrolling monsters, Hunter diverted to approach at an angle ahead of the scorpion’s rough heading. His sense of smell was leveraged again to locate a field of grass large enough to conceal them. It was possible these creatures could detect them while they hid, but these scorpions wouldn’t be subtle enough to conceal this. Hunter watched as a blood parasite attempted to feed on Tak while they waited. The needle coming from its head couldn’t even pierce the skin. If it had, Regeneration would just close the wound and maybe kill the insect if it didn’t withdraw the proboscis fast enough. It died instead when Tak speared it with a single claw, wiping it off on one of his fangs.

Tak liked insects, Hunter had noticed. It was like moles were for him. These prey were insects, although it was unlikely his partner would join in consuming them. It depended, but so far Tak had only harvested from some of the kills and let Hunter take the rest. The bird man understood not only what Hunter was trying to do but how.

The prey grew closer. Seconds now. They hadn’t noticed. Hunter prepared to leap on one of the smaller ones. His decisive strike would be wasted on one of the adults who could survive it. Tak was opening and closing a paw, readying himself as well. Neither indicated their plan, they had no real way to. If they both ended up targeting the same one, well, that’s how it would be. There was only a small chance either would hurt the other anyway.

They were finally noticed as the third scorpion passed close to their position. An alarmed clicking sound passed between the prey and they began to rotate to face the enemy and lash out with their stingers.

“Fang and Claw!” Tak cried, voice fully bestial. He spun midair as he lept, sinking one of his paws into a tail to propel himself towards the body. The attack he was using committed him to the follow-up, its main flaw aside from needing an incantation. What made up for it was the momentum. This ability was savage and the chained attacks grew successively in strength.

Tak’s transformed beak couldn’t fully open like Hunter’s jaws could. Despite this, he bit into and tore a chunk out of the carapace of one of the adult scorpions right above its head. That didn’t kill it but took it most of the way. For Hunter’s part? The ringcat wasn’t even there for the stingers to reach. He had Jumped.

There were many options for Hunter to take to replace Identify Creature, which he couldn’t access again until he Grew. Moment of Clarity had been immediately rejected. Of those he could have used, there were problems like not having a high enough level or not being able to use a crossbow. Feather Strike would have been interesting, but Hunter had opted instead for Jump. Daniel hadn’t understood the decision, which was to be expected. Daniel liked to use Moment of Clarify so his judgment was clearly faulty.

Hunter knew that if Tak was faced with the same decision, he’d choose what he had. Why make use of feathers when Hunter could just Jump and close the distance immediately? That just went to show how in sync they were. Of course, Tak already had Jump, so he might have chosen the feathers given the chance.

That wasn’t even considering Hunter’s Springing Strike ability which also improved the distance and speed of his jumps. Combining the two was possible despite everything telling Hunter it shouldn’t be. The way the mana coursed through him upon the activation of an ability prevented him from using another until it ran its course. Jump and Springing Strike appeared to have enough similarities to ignore this effect and improve each other. That left the ringcat with an absurdly powerful combination attack. When the tails lashed out, Hunter was in the air and arcing down onto one of the young ones. Normally he’d bite with this attack but wasn’t forced into it like Tak was with his more committed ability.

Hunter’s claws ripped easily through the weaker exoskeleton of his target and would have decapitated the scorpion if its anatomy had afforded it a neck. Synergy. It was a word Hunter still had trouble wrapping his mind around, but Daniel had used it while remarking on the first time Hunter had tried combining his natural ability with the shared one. Maybe that was the reason he had killed his prey while Tak had only mortally wounded the other.

“Watch the tails,” Tak growled as both he and the ringcat backed off. They were on the opposite side of the grass now and preparing to clash again. The scorpions were doing the same as they recovered from their lunges. To strike at the pair, they’d shot forward on their two front legs to propel their tails. It was easy for the monsters to then rock back and absorb the momentum on the back three that had initially propelled the maneuver. The bird man looked at something held in a paw. The stinger of one of the adults, ripped off from his combination attack. He eyed one of the ruptured pustules with an inquiring eye and threw it aside. “Not poison. I think.”

Hunter couldn’t comment. He didn’t have the voice or the time. Faced with an enemy and an escape route in the grasses behind them, the stridor scorpions chose to charge. It was a bucking motion not unlike how they’d lashed out with their stingers, small hops using the front and back sets of legs. Every time they came forward there was an opportunity to sting if a target was within reach. The only exception was the wounded adult that limped forward with its shattered body, unwilling to submit. That reminded Hunter of the mountain that broke itself. He pushed hard into the ground and rebelled against those memories. He’d never be that weak again. Hunter snarled and Tak stepped in front of him. Why?

The scorpions were almost here! Hunter had let time pass too quickly. No, he’d lost his concentration. Only a thinking creature would have had this problem and Hunter cursed his mind. He’d have to Jump again. Back? That would be safer, though it wasn’t Hunter’s way. His prey was in front of him, not behind. There was something else to what Tak was doing, lowering himself and bending forward slightly. Of course. Tak wasn’t protecting him at all. At least, that’s not all he was doing. The bird man truly understood him.

…

The four charging scorpions lunged forward at the same time when their loping stride brought them close to Tak. The Totem Warrior momentarily bore the weight of Hunter as the ringcat leaped off his back, then concentrated. This kind of fight was one Tak was suited for. No tricks, arrows, or spells. The only quirk was whatever the scorpions carried in their tails. Not venom, not to Tak’s currently malformed avian nostrils. They weren’t as strong as the ringcat’s but had sampled a fair number of substances before. This was something else.

Tak lazily batted away the stingers of the younger scorpions, bursting the pustules as he did so. He frowned as he felt the flesh under his fur and feathers itch. Whatever was within the tails could act on contact, but all it did was itch. Worry was cast aside in favor of managing the two tails that remained, each moving with too much force to divert.

Well, no one said Tak couldn’t use tricks in this fight. He was already crouched down, which made it easy for him to Jump. It was a surprisingly common power that came to those who advanced their strength within certain classes, so much so it was regarded as a basic ability, one you would assume a Totem Warrior had. Tak was by no means an expert in fighting other mortals, but even he knew that much.

He saw Hunter land when he reached the apex of his Jump. The ringcat had targeted the lagging adult, landing claws first to pierce the unarmored section. Tak looked for the one he wanted to attack, but his thoughts were interrupted when his hands started burning like they were on fire. He tumbled in the air as he batted and scratched, for with the burning there was still the itch. His lungs were moving faster than they should, and Tak wasn’t consciously willing them to.

The toxin had only come from a level 1 creature. How was it affecting him this strongly? Regeneration should be healing him. Maybe it was a disease? Regeneration worked with disease too, didn’t it? Tak couldn’t remember, or maybe he’d never known in the first place. It wasn’t like he could read. He only learned from experience, and Tak had never felt anything like this.

He ended up landing roughly and away from the other combatants. The pain wasn’t ending. What should he do, tear off his arms? It was an option, they’d grow back eventually, and it would stop this. Or, no, it wouldn’t. Tak could hear his breathing now. He was taking in air with gasps and it was becoming hard to breathe. He couldn’t sever his neck to stop the effect, even with Regeneration there were some things you just couldn’t survive at this level.

If not that, then there was only survival. Hunter could drag his weakened body back to the village if need be, but Tak would not die. His defiance did nothing to slow his breathing. Something had crept under his skin to drive his lungs into a frenzy. What’s worse, it was becoming harder to breathe, only increasing how frequently he gasped in air.

The scorpions were advancing on him instead of Hunter, sensing he’d been affected by their stingers. It would have been difficult to evade the next few attacks if not for the roar. It was an echoing thing, but not soul shaking like the fire dragon’s, that rattled the windows of his mind. Ringcats were seen as generic, lacking in abnormal power or specialization. Reliable was what Tak preferred to think, but he was biased.

“Tails, bad,” Tak forced out as he tried to collect himself. Whatever had affected him was coming to a plateau, though the burning, itching, and choking was not stopping. Tak could fight but with difficulty. What was worse was all this had happened from striking a pustule with the back of his hand. If a stinger hit him or Hunter, it would be over. How were these enemies on his level?

The fear effect on the adult scorpions wore off faster than their smaller counterparts, too quickly for Tak to recover and make use of the opening. That was still enough, and Tak wanted to reduce the number of opponents as quickly as he could. Two stingers could be managed, but four could not. He looked at one of the frozen young scorpions, anger rising at what they’d done to him. A foreign emotion normally, but something else was bringing it out. A sound came from the back of his throat that wasn’t remotely mortal. Tak blinked, then saw he was on the other side of the group of scorpions.

One was dead, several cuts across its body. The rest had slashes as well, though the adults weren’t critically injured. Tak himself had been hurt, though he’d avoided the substance in the stingers. Time had passed without Tak being conscious of it. What had just happened? Was this a power he didn’t realize he had?

Then Tak saw that the only surviving young Stridor Scorpion was missing its stinger. He found it when he saw Hunter, the black chitinous spear buried in the ringcat’s back. Instead of collapsing, Hunter was only showing signs of mild discomfort. Had the stinger been severed from the tail before piercing him? How would that work? The anger was still also there, spurned by the fire in his hands in chest. There was something in him, something driving all of this that was fed both by his friend’s pain and the difficulties he was having. It was beginning to take him over.

…

Tak ran at the scorpions again faster than Hunter had seen before tonight. There was a look in the bird man’s eyes. Something had changed and Hunter didn’t like it. He’d roared so they could escape and come back when they’d healed themselves. This prey couldn’t outrun them or escape Hunter’s senses, and he thought the bird man would have understood.

Instead, after the roar, Tak had run on all fours toward the enemies and started cutting with his paws. They looked different, and not in the normal way following the transformation. Whenever one tried to sting him, Tak would either dodge or maneuver to use one of the others as a shield. Hunter had come to his aid midway through the brief exchange, only to receive a sting for his troubles. Tak had intercepted the tail in the moments after this had happened, cutting away the hard tip before too much of whatever was within could be injected.

The area on his back that had been pierced burned, much in the way Tak’s hands had. The difference was Hunter’s breathing was mostly unchanged. No wheezing gasps or difficulty drawing in air. Hunter moved back in to support Tak. This was risky as he could die if the larger insects hit him with their stingers in the right spot. The claws at the end of each leg proved dangerous as well if the healing cuts on Tak were anything to judge by. Their somewhat flat frame meant the prey couldn’t freely swipe with them as Hunter could. The danger was when the legs came up or down from the rocking motion of the bodies, adding an additional close range threat whenever they moved or tried to stab out.

To escape both threats, Hunter had to stay as mobile as Tak. Small bounding hops across the earth instead of a straight run meant his movements were less predictable, if slower. He didn’t use Jump here, just the natural faintly serpentine weave his kind made use of on occasion. All of his quarry were focused on the bird man, stabbing out consecutively instead of all at once to present a multimodal threat to Tak.

The Totem Warrior was capable of dodging each of the stingers, but each time he did it was at the expense of a claw to the chest or limb. Hunter came in from behind a larger foe right when it leaned back from a tail thrust, latching onto the base of it with his fangs and paws. The added weight didn’t flip the creature, as Hunter had hoped. Instead, it strained against him in its attempts to fully right itself.

The hide was tough, and the taste of gravel was predominant. That sense was Hunter’s weakest. Why would he need a refined palette? Hunger was all the motivation Hunter needed to eat. Devouring this insect would not be an easy task, however. He strained to tear off as much flesh as he could to weaken its tail. It was all he could do in this scenario.

“RAAAA!” Tak screamed as a claw caught him on the leg that had been injured in the mines. He wasn’t just slashed but caught on the leg, pinned by one of the larger two scorpions. Hunter tried to roar but couldn’t. His mouth was full, and he didn’t have the breath to do so just yet. He didn’t have anything to use. Even with what Daniel had given him, there was not enough. The ringcat was thrown aside as the scorpion overpowered him, lunging forward again to strike at Tak.

It was with something beyond sanity that Tak acted. Even Hunter winced as the bird man simply ignored the leg of the scorpion pinning him down and lunged forward while screaming. The sound was bird-like again, though nothing like the faintly pleasant sound the race normally made. Something was happening to Tak. The mammalian features he’d adopted were reverting to avian again, but far more feral than they had been. A longer beak, longer talons, and eyes strangest of everything else.

The flesh of the leg tore away while what was still attached to Tak bled freely. Twisting in the air, Tak caught the tail and used impaling talons to climb his way towards the back of the creature. Once he’d reached the wound Hunter had inflicted, Tak planted his newly hooked beak there, hugged the tail, and twisted. A shriek like warping metal came from his target as it expressed its regret in surviving the injury.

When Hunter looked with concern, he instinctively backed up and lowered himself. Whatever was in front of him wasn’t Tak, even though it smelled the same. Would it attack him? More worrying, was this what the scorpion’s stingers did? Hunter had been able to ignore the pain from his back so far but began to fear both the bird man and the madness he carried.

Still, he couldn’t abandon the fight unless the bird man was actively aggressive. Now he only seemed to have intent towards those harming him. Hunter took more small leaps to hit one of the weakened smaller insects from behind. All the while he feared what would happen to his mind. Hunter wasn’t supposed to have one, but that only made it more precious.

The scorpions were mindful of Hunter but had to prioritize Tak as the Totem Warrior tore through them, mindless of his injuries. The only thing he avoided was the tips of the tails, otherwise bearing stabs and slashes. Hunter neared his target which turned too late to face him. Hunter jumped onto its back, bit in hard into the back carapace, and then used Jump. The segmented natural armor had already been weakened, now peeling away from the force of ability.

Hunter had intended to fall back onto the same creature’s claws first, but instead, Tak plunged one of his talons into the exposed flesh, pulled something out, and ate it. The insect died, unable to live without whatever had been removed. The last smaller scorpion died as Hunter fell, Tak hammering the spot above its head with his elbow until it dented. The surviving larger ones weren’t inactive, but only had one stinger left between them. The fight was essentially over by the time Hunter landed on the dead scorpion unless Tak chose to fight him as well. If that happened, Hunter didn’t know what he’d do.

…

Tak finished beating the last scorpion to death, watched it die, and then collapsed under the sudden realization of his injuries. And his thoughts. He remembered nothing between now and when he was standing away from the group of scorpions. They were dead, which was good. Tak himself still struggled to breathe and he was covered in wounds. The bleeding had stopped, but the burning in his hands continued. He needed to wash it off his hands but there was no stream nearby.

He saw the ringcat approach cautiously, seemingly uninjured now that the stinger had been forced out of his body. There shouldn’t be a need for fear, their prey was dead, but it wasn’t on anything distant. It was him? Hunter was afraid of him? Tak forgot his pain with the surprise of it. What had happened? He had the sense he’d used something, more of his mana was missing than there should be, and an eddy of an unfamiliar mana pathway rippled within him.

“What,” Tak wheezed, unable to say more. This wasn’t as bad as the mines, but he was still critically injured. His leg was shredded again. Why was it always that leg? “You, hwak,” he coughed, finding the air met resistance. “Ok?”

Hunter nodded slowly, still with an air of distrust. Tak’s affinity power didn’t translate what the ringcat was thinking, since there wasn’t normally anything there to translate. Still, he found he could understand this ringcat better than any other beast he’d ever encountered. Was this proof that his elders were right?

Tak coughed again. His throat seemed to clog itself easily. “What, gwa, happened?” Hunter just looked at the bodies. He couldn’t answer, of course. What he could do was project worry, still tinged with fear. His fur was raised, breath fast. Not because of any toxin, but to scent the air at a faster rate. Hunter was keeping track of his surroundings but not facing away from Tak. That probably meant there wasn’t a monster nearby, something that could better explain the strange behavior of the ringcat.

The Totem Warrior paused to consider his injuries. Dozens of shallow cuts that would be gone by morning, a deep gouge and torn flesh on one of his legs, and the influence of the scorpion’s stingers. He needed to get back to the village. Something was bypassing his healing, though it wasn’t getting worse so there was time.

“Eat.” Tak scrambled away from the bloody mess. His light red blood was mixing with the dark green of the monsters. That turned his stomach to see. Tak would never eat anything that bled like that, not raw at least, but to a ringcat everything was food. Hunter did approach the bodies, still with the sense of being spooked. It was getting on Tak’s nerves, just a little. He might have gotten carried away during the fight, or maybe lost control? Either way, he never would have done something to hurt Hunter.

The ringcat did gorge then, starting with the flesh without chitin to protect it. The beast avoided anything that the stingers and the pustules above them had remotely touched. There was no way he could eat all of them either, Hunter would just take his fill. Normally, Tak would harvest these creatures to make up rations for the village.

Not tonight. He was too injured, too inflicted. Maybe he should take one of the stingers back, carefully. Could they make something from it to heal him? Tak only knew that the one of his kind with dark green feathers was clever. She’d make a suitable match for himself, only Tak had the sense it wouldn’t work the other way. No matter, he was young. He would have plenty of time to find someone if he didn’t die here tonight.

Tak was wrested from his thoughts when Hunter moved towards him. Done already? Ringcats ate quickly to not leave themselves exposed, though it had only been a minute. Hunter jerked his head behind him, indicating the bodies. “Can’t,” Tak wheezed. It was time to go. He stood and fell back down. He tried again, and again, but his lungs weren’t getting enough air and his leg was too weak.

Hunter seemed to consider something, decide, and then clench his jaw. Tak didn’t need to ask what the beast was thinking when he lowered himself to the ground. He was surprised, but the ringcat should be able to bear his weight. It was a good plan. So why did Tak again sense unease from Hunter as he rode him back to the village?