Fenrir: Dawn Rising (Part 2)

"Hey, don't knock it 'till you've tried it." Leo replied to Alice, crossing her arms too.

"... You caught up that quick?" She turned to face Phasmatis, narrowing her eyes. "... damn it, Ris doesn't look like he's in any condition to fight him right now..."

"Well, um..." Aetsia sighed. "After I bit Jackal, I guess the blood gave me a voice somehow... but that's besides the point. First order of business, Nexus has gotta go. I don't care if Jackal and I have to do it, Nexus is outta here."

She thought for a few moments. "Also, we want some vacation days, our own room where we're guaranteed not to be disturbed, real electricity, internet, TV, video games and we won't bite to turn anyone. Unless they give consent or unless they REALLY have it coming. Ris, for example, doesn't have it coming. Neither does that cat-girl he hangs around with..."

Damn, I don't think I could kill that jackal, unless I unleashed Kazan... And I don't want to do that, yet.

Meanwhile, a lone wolf, sitting in the darkness of his quarters, perked his ears. Reacting to the situation near Vulpa, he stood up, body dissolving into black dust, before reappearing behind the blue, bleeding vulpine. He stood about a foot and a half taller than him, most of his body covered in a long cloak.

The wolf put his paw on Ris's shoulder. "Are you all right?" he said, minimal expression in his voice.

---

"You... are giving ME demands?" Terra asked in disbelief. "Do you know who I am, little girl?"

"Well, they're not demands. They're more like requests. You don't want your two potentially best employees to be unhappy, do you?" Aetsia asked Terra.

"You think you're employees? You're more like slaves, to be honest," Terra replied.

"Well, I wouldn't say we're slaves. When everyone else gets to leave, we can too. There's literally nothing tying us here." Aetsia replied to Terra. "We don't particularly want to be your servants. I'm sure Fenrir's already told you that much..."

"If you think you can just do whatever you want now, you got another thing coming," Terra said, crawling off of Fenrir and standing to face them.

"Well, we fought against Fenrir just fine earlier..." the squirrel replied. "If that isn't a clear indicator of where we are in terms of free will, I don't know what is."

She wasn't about to bring up the hypnotic talk thing.

"Little girl, I don't think we've met," Terra said with her paws on her hips. "My name is "your worst nightmare", what's yours?"

"It's Aetsia." she replied, hardly fazed. "You're taking this the completely wrong way..."

Already, she was feeling a bit annoyed. Why was she trying to come off as intimidating? Aetsia just thought Terra was being stingy and a bit of an ass, with all disrespect totally meant.

Also, that 'little girl' thing was kind of annoying.

"Oh, I'm going to have too much fun with you... Right, Jackal?" Terra said, her voice suddenly cloaked in a layer of evil intentions.

"You... really don't want us to be happy in your service, huh?" Aetsia sighed, turning away. "Fine then. We'll leave, if that's what you'd prefer. No need to stay around here if you and Fenrir are going to treat us like trash."

Without waiting for a reply from Jackal, Terra snapped her fingers. The door behind the couple slammed shut.

"I'm not particularly interested if you're happy or not. You just need to learn your place."

"... so we're really going to have to do it this way, huh?" the squirrel asked, not turning back to face Terra.

She sighed, shaking her head. "I guess being a vampire for however long you've been a vampire gets to your head. Would I be like you if I weren't... well, me?"

"Doubtful. I'm one of a kind," Terra replied. "I still feel like you aren't getting the point. When Jackal pees his pants, I'm sure you'll understand."

"I didn't mean that like that. I meant totally uncaring about other individuals." Aetsia replied. "And... well, he might be afraid, but I'm not."

She stepped in front of Jackal defensively. "My grandpa's a vampire who's fanatic about you, my mother's probably sitting in the corner somewhere in this castle bawling her eyes out because she killed someone to satisfy her hunger. Someone in my family's going to put their foot down, and it's going to be me."

"... god forbid I ask to just go home..."

Home... yeah, she did wanna just go back. Mom baking cookies for her and Grandpa, who would always be watching old movies...

Adventuring in the woods was gone forever if Terra had her way. This whole 'speaking' thing also kinda sucked, in retrospect.

Jackal was the only good thing that had come from this whole event.

Worst time to get nostalgic. She looked away from Terra to the side. "... yes. What would you say if I just asked to go home with my family and Jackal and pretend this never happened?"

"Well, that's up to Fenrir. He's more in charge than I am. But..." Terra grinned. "As for the fear? I can fix that."

"Don't bother." the squirrel replied. "You can't fix what isn't broken."

"The cocky, defiant types are so much more rewarding in the end," Terra replied, flicking her hair back with her paw before cracking her knuckles, wearing a warm smile the entire time.

Ris was already worried when Phasmatis suddenly appeared, of course knowing his name and everything, so he definitely started when a hand suddenly made its presence known on his shoulder. Dismissing the uncertainty with a twitch of his ear, the vulpine forced his fur to lay flat. "Yeah, I-I'm all right...just...bloodied up a bit..." he mumbled, hardly glancing back at the wolf. He felt it only polite to ask in return, "You?"

Then again, for all he knew, the wolf was going to try to kill him next. That was typical in the castle.

"Damn it, it wasn't supposed to happen like this..." Aetsia muttered to herself, drawing her sword and shield.

Grandpa had told her plenty about Terra. Her illusions... that were actually sometimes real.

She didn't want that to happen to her. She wouldn't let it happen to her.

She ran to the side, sheathing her sword and shield along the way, pulling out her bow and notching three arrows, sending them flying at the tigress. She still kept moving, figuring the best way to keep out of her illusions was to keep out of her sight.

Eternity in your hands. Power amplified, a million fold. The power of a god. A voice echoed in Phasmatis' head. The voice sounded like it was made of hundreds more voices. If you could have your wish... Then give me mine. All you must do is set me free. And this power can be yours.

Phasmatis held up his paw in Vulpa's direction, threatening to charge an orb, with her targeted. However, he stepped forward and turned around, now facing Ris, lowering his arm.

"Sorry, Ris. Solus wants you dead... but I also want Solus dead. So you see, we're at a stalemate here. The only way to do it... is to kill as many enemies in this castle as you possibly can. Doesn't matter if it's a bug as long as it has a soul to give."


Jackal felt slightly worried about going up against Terra after what had happened to him, last time. "W-well, Terra. If you really, really, really, REALLY, really, really, really, really, really, want to fight us... t-then a-alright, then."

Fenrir just rolled his eyes, Given Jackal's fear of Terra and Aetsia's mortal-class weaponry... in the words of the children of this modern world, 'Those two are boned...'

The expression on the wolf did not change. "I am fine."

"Tsk..." Vulpa growled when the wolf appeared. "Stay out of my way!"

"When your "way" interferes with orders, it becomes a priority," the wolf responded. "He is not to be harmed."

The vixen dropped her arms, shrugging. "I wasn't gonna kill him."

"I didn't mean you." The wolf said, gesturing over to the jackal.

From what Ris could see, the wolf had two bandages over his eyes, in a "x" shape.

From what Ris could see of the newcomer, the wolf was rather creepy.

From what he knew of Vulpa, she was sadistically insane.

From what he could tell of the jackal...Well, it certainly wasn't the Jackal that he knew.

"Okay..." he began, looking between everyone in the room, "I know this isn't really orthodox or anything, but can everyone who wants me dead please raise their hand?"

Maybe the loss of blood was getting to Ris?

...Nah, he was pretty much naturally like this.

Terra faked a yawn as the arrows turned into little woodpeckers before hitting her. The three turned around and swarmed at Aetisa's head, pecking the top of it violently.

While the squirrel was busy, Terra walked over to Jackal, just standing in front of him and grinning.

---

Vulpa wanted to raise her head, but with the wolf here, she settled for a groan.

"Forgive me, young Master. I fear that Vulpa may have mistaken you for a threat," the wolf said.

Aetsia let out a little annoyed grunt before pulling up her shield, pushing against the attacking woodpeckers with it. "Annoying..."

Leo ran over to Ris, looking at the eye-bandage wolf. "Young master? ... so are you pretty much the only 'guardian' of this castle who knows that he's 'safe'?"