Fenrir: Dawn Rising (Part 2)

Alice hopped down the hole landing on her feet. The impact, forcing her to bend her knees into a crouch.

Phasmatis grinned, "Well, then, let's get the party started. Since there are two Pantheons, this should be done in no time!"

Alice, however, put her paw to her head, feeling like someone was talking to her. The choice is not yours, it is the dawn that brings the pain, the night that brings the dreams. Your dream is to be with your father. I can bring you two together...


Jackal nodded and began trying to sneak away from Fenrir and Terra, "I agree. Looks like Terra's virtually untouchable..."

"... hey, Alice, you OK?" Leo asked. "Better get ready before the monsters start noticing us more than they have now and start attacking..."

Aetsia nodded. "But there's gotta be something we can do..." she said. "I'm... I'm just glad to be out of there now. I hate her. And I hate him, too..." This was Terra and Fenrir that she hated, of course.

"You're damn right, Jackal!" Terra shouted at him egotistically.

An orb charging in each of his hands, Ris gave a confident nod, his blue eyes shining in determination.

He was going to make sure Solus was dead, starting with these monsters.

"Let's do it!"

Alice shook her head, clearing the thoughts, "Y-yeah... I'm good." She then brought her paw to her holster, pulling out her blaster, aiming at one of the monsters.


Jackal felt frozen with fear at the sound of Terra's voice. "D-don't hurt me!"


Phasmatis grinned and began running at the horde of monsters, "Then let's kill everything in sight!"

"Alright, good." Leo replied to Alice, deciding to start with a skeleton first. With a quick roundhouse kick, she sent its skull flying into the wall, shattering it.

The now headless skeleton began to spazz out.

Aetsia let out a low sigh, hugging Jackal. "Don't worry. Once we do this, we'll be free from her..."

"All right... Time's up, Ris." Luna said, after switching to a more functional pair of clothes. A tank-top with a pair of tight shorts that go halfway down her thigh. She didn't feel like putting her hair in a pony-tail, so she let it drape down past her shoulders. Two fingerless gloves were pulled onto her paws.

"Okay... open!" Luna said, holding her paw out in front of her. Nothing happened.

"Portal! Summon! Teleport!" Luna ranted random words, still nothing happened.

"Ugh, why won't you work!?"

Maybe if you ask nicely--

"Shut up, you!"

Following after Phasmatis, Ris sped forward with his arms out at his sides, the two orbs of energy shining menacingly.

A minotaur was the first to take up his challenge.

With a light grin, the blue vulpine came to a skidding halt, twisting his torso and throwing an orb, continuing the spin and chucking another, a little lower and farther down the line than the first.

The first hit the minotaur in the chest, knocking the breath out of it and sending it flying back onto an unsuspecting skeleton. An inevitable crunch sounded, followed by a bellow of pain as the second orb struck the larger monster. It burst into flames only briefly, leaving no corpse behind.

At least the castle would be kept clean--relatively, at least.

"Okay... please?" To Luna's dismay, the portal opened in front of her.

You're welcome.

"I'm not going to have to ask you every time, right?"

I told you. We'll be the same soon.

"Good, I want you out of my head, or I'll start charging rent."

Luna stepped through the portal, reappearing in the garden of the castle.

"All right... Where am I?" she asked herself.

Phasmatis threw an electro orb at one of the werewolves, which began to spazz as it got shocked. Soon bursting into flames and disappearing. "Weak things... makes me wonder if their souls are even worth giving to Nexus."


In Nexus' prison, the gate cracked some more, one of the bars broke off.


Alice looked around to the others, firing her blaster at each monster in sight. It wasn't effective, but it at least weakened them. "So... uhh... anyone here been hearing voices in your head, recently?"

"Can't say I have." Leo said as she disassembled her headless skeleton, letting the bones rattle around the ground.

She decided to throw an electro orb as well, though this was at another minotaur. "Ugly bastard..." she muttered.

After having just crushed a skeleton's head under his foot, Ris looked back towards the jackal. "Hey, Phasmatis! Did you plan to clear out the whole room?"

The cloaked wolf eventually came to a coliseum in his searchings, though in the bleachers rather than the battle floor. He peered around and noted numerous creatures randomly placed about, mostly on the coliseum floor. A few where in the stands however, a nearby skeleton made the mistake of trying to attack him.

Its head ended up being tossed into the center of the chamber where it landed by a bluish fox with a thud.

Phasmatis just shrugged, "Dunno. Just kill everything until something strange happens."

Alice kept firing at more monsters until she ended up hearing the voice once more. I know what you want, Alice Thorn. Daughter of Jack Thorn. I can give you that, which you seek... just follow my directions...

She turned to the group and sighed, "I'm going to find mom and the others. Get some helping hands in here. Be right back." With that, she began to run from the group, out of the coliseum. The offer the voice was giving was too much for her to turn away from.

Ris' ears perked up and his head turned towards the source as a skull bounced randomly to his feet. Bending down, he picked it up, examining it for a minute before coming to a conclusion--It was, indeed, a skull.

'Now then, judging by its weight along with the direction and duration of its bounce...' Lightly tossing it up into the air and catching it again, the blue vulpine threw it back, unknowingly sending the skull straight towards the wolf's.

The wolf was just turning to leave the coliseum when a skull collided comically with his own, sending him stumbling forward a few paces. This, needless to say, angered the lupine to such a degree that he whipped around and glared at the general area of the coliseum floor. And what a mighty glare it was.

The wolf produced a sword from under his cloak and jumped down from his perch, marching towards the general direction the skull had flown from. He hacked random zombies or skeletons in half whenever they where unfortunate enough to be within range of the blade.

Luna wandered around the garden, just waiting to be kidnapped.

---

"Now what, babe?" Terra asked Fenrir.

Phasmatis' ears perked and he turned around to see something heading their way amongst the crowd of monsters, "Heads up, something new, coming our way."


Fenrir groaned, "I feel like those Pantheon's are going to release Nexus, soon. I just know it..." Of course, he was talking about Cebelrai and Solus. But he didn't realize a different pair of Pantheon's were the ones killing the monsters.


Alice continued walking down a dark corridor, that appeared to be covered in black slime. "...eww... I'm gonna need new shoes after this." She made her way to a large chamber. One side of the room was blocked by cracked and almost broken bars. Looked like a prison of some sort. Your allies have blinded you with their light, burned their will until it became yours. Reclaim that will! Reclaim your Destiny! The voice echoed.

She looked around and saw some glowing lanterns. Several small orbs could be seen floating inside the lanterns. Those are soul containers. Break each of them... and Jack Thorn will be with you once more...

Alice looked uncertain. She could only look at the containers and contemplate her actions.
I will be free, and when I'll be free she would be forgotten. I will be free! This voice was clearly Jack's.

She looked around, "Father?"

Tell me... Alice gasped at the sound of a new voice. Is SHE here to make this sacrifice, or has she let you and Adam fall for her ruse? The voice sounded familiar this time. It wasn't Jack's. It was feminine.


Cebelrai looked down into the skylight, raising her eyebrows at the sight of Luna. "Oooh, an interesting specimen. Must be a denizen of the castle."

Solus' ear twitched and he opened one of his eyes. "What?"

"Looks like Ris' girlfriend." Cebelrai said. This immediately grabbed the Arch-Pantheon's attention as he immediately got to his feet and walked over to the skylight, forcefully pushing Cebelrai out of the way.

He looked through the skylight at her before stomping on the glass, allowing it to smash beneath his feet. He fell several stories into the garden, where he simply landed on his feet. A dust cloud flying in all directions.

A piece of falling glass slit through Luna's shoulder, which responded from her a yelp of pain. She clutched her paw over the relatively small wound, before the loud "thump" to the ground rang in her ears.

---

Terra's greatest fear had been realized for the first time. A fear so great that it almost made her want to stop terrorizing people, if this is how they felt... almost.

"Solus found Luna!!" Terra frantically explained to Fenrir before a portal erupted out from her feet, hastily taking her to the garden behind the young lynx. One of her arms wrapped around Luna's neck (not strangling), the other hand tensing at her side, the black Wii Remote silently appearing in her paw.

Luna instantly knew who it was, when she saw black stripes on orange fur.

Terra flared her teeth at Solus. 'I'm sorry, honey, but please don't distract me right now,' she whispered.

The lynx's eyebrows cocked up in confusion, but she decided that the situation she was in, was probably a lot more serious than she realized, considering the death threat of an expression the fur that dropped from the ceiling was wearing.

Dammit... If I open a portal, even for a second, Solus is fast enough to get to it, and he'd never stop chasing Luna. Maybe, he doesn't know who she is yet. The worried mother thought of her options.

'Just keep quiet, Luna...' Terra whispered in the lynx's ear, which didn't help her already racing heart.

"Who the hell's that guy?" Leo asked while she was balancing on a very annoyed minotaur's shoulders before she punched down into its skull. If it had survived the blow, the minotaur probably would have been lobotomized and turned into a functioning member of society.

Unfortunately, getting punched with a technological wonder of a gauntlet didn't lend itself to being survivable. She backflipped off of the minotaur, grabbing its axe before chucking it at a crowd of enemies. "Is this fun yet? I think it is!"

When both Phasmatis and Leo reacted to the newcomer, even if only briefly, the blue-furred vulpine turned his head to look as well.

What he saw was a cloaked wolf hacking away at the monsters before him as he approached. Ris couldn't help but feel a stinging familiarity pulsing from the wolf--A dark presence he had felt before.

Skoll was dead and wouldn't give off that sort of Vibe. Hati was definitely dead, too. They made sure of that.

It wasn't Fenrir either, and the bandaged wolf from earlier hadn't had this feel about them.

"Bane..."

"What? Bane?" Was all Phasmatis said. The name did jog a memory. He seemed to recall a powerful wolf appearing in the castle. He remembered seeing the wolf, during their fight with Fenrir.


Solus stood up and began walking towards Luna and Terra, a clearly angry expression on his face. He jerked his thumb to the side, "Move aside, Terra. It's the girl I want."


Alice looked ahead at the gate after she heard the voice, "No... no, no, no, no, no..." she repeated to herself. Refusing to believe what she was seeing.

Behind the gate stood Kaede. "Break the containers, Alice."

"S-so, my mom, is dead... my mom died a long time ago..." She said, not wanting to see Kaede like this.

"Quite a long time ago, actually." Kaede said, smiling. "Now, break the containers and Jack will show himself to you."

Alice's eyes wandered, "W-what about Adam?"

Behind Kaede, Adam stepped forward, "You mean, me? Sorry, Alice... I kinda died, too."

Alice slumped to her knees. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Kaede rested her head on the bars and sighed, "I died when Terra's hold on me was broken, long ago. Anima, Amy and many others died, too."

Adam just crossed his arms, "My death was because of some old guy who bit me and turned me into a vampire. I lost too much blood... Though, I still turned into a vampire, my soul was already gone."

Kaede and Adam, then began to speak in unison, "Break the containers, Alice!"

Alice looked at the 4 containers in each corner of the large room and pulled out her blaster. She took aim at one of them, her arm shaky. She fired the first shot at one of the containers which exploded in a display of blue light. The black slime that was near the container seemed to disperse from that spot, revealing a dark blue stone floor beneath it.

She then began to aim at the others.

"Hate to break it to ya, Solus, but I saw her first," Terra replied, flicking her tongue at the rim of Luna's ear. "I haven't tasted blood before, and she just seems so yummy."

It took a while for Luna to get the message, before she forced her eyes to widen in fear. "W-what are you doing, you witch!?"

"Struggling only makes you tired, babe," Terra hissed.

"Something wrong, Ris?" Leo asked nonchalantly, using skeletons as platforms, scattering their bones with every jump. "I can tell from up here something's disturbing you!"

And then her ultimate opponent appeared. A skeleton with a flowing red scarf, wearing boots.

"Leo Marks, I AM KICKER SKELETON!" it called out, striking a dynamic pose. "You and I have the same hot blood running through our veins! BEHOLD, DYNAMO KIIIIIIIIICK!"

"Heeeee-YAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Leo called out in response, jumping in the air and kicking the skeleton the same time it kicked Leo.

Time seemed to freeze for a few seconds. There was a large, yet harmless explosion behind the two as kick met kick.

They both landed, the skeleton falling to pieces, its hand giving a thumbs-up.

"... he doesn't even have any blood..." Leo muttered.

Bane was there.

So what?

Leo and a skeleton wearing boots and a flowing scarf just made fireworks.

"Holy frick...What a dynamic display of mortal strength and accomplishment..."