CHPT 391: From the Grave.

Dreams. Nightmares. Claude wasn't new to the experience-- the unpleasantries that came with slumber. Horrors on repeat, tragedies frozen in time to be viewed forever.

For the first time there was a difference. No sight of Dolion or Jack. No killing spree's born from misunderstanding and hatred.

All he saw was a doe. Standing calmly in a clearing as it drank from a pond. So still and clear he could see the Moon's reflection above. Full and covered in pale flames...

His body shook in the silence. His eyes never moved from the doe that seemed completely oblivious to his presence.

The strangest feeling rose from the pits of his stomach. He didn't understand. He pushed it down.

Something snarled seemingly from the sky.

"wAkE UP bOY!!"

***

Claude's eyes flew open with a start.

The world around him was dark. Blurry..... spinning. Shapes moved in the shadows, away from the sun's rays, their forms fluid and fluttering like ghosts while others lumbered about loudly like they were made of stone.

Despite his woozy state, his body shook so violently he thought he was being willed to do so by another set of hands.

"[Claude, center your mind. Your survival demands it, young Lupine.]"

Claude didn't speak. He just listened to Arne's words as he shut his eyes and willed the world to stop spinning.

Along the way, memories of what happened played in flashes.

The Elven Murderer.... The Harpy..... The woman with silver claws ....

"Ursula." Claude thought in a panic.

"[She is fine. Still very much asleep... Frosty on the other hand--]"

"RAAAAGHSHSHSH!!!" The PitWolf snarled from his cage as a team of Cyclops' with poorly made catch poles fought to restrain him.

Every time he shook, a Cyclops' fell to the floor or a pole broke, but they never left him. And the hundreds of broken pieces lining the stone floor around him told him they'd been at it for hours.

Claude suddenly had the most murderous impulse he'd ever felt flow through him. He'd hated being restrained, but seeing another that he cared for...

He took in a mouthful of air, forced it to fill his lungs and set there before he released it, feeling for his connection to Frosty.

"Relax..... you have to calm down. You'll be ok."

Frosty turned and eyed Claude. The fury died down, but his growls were endless.

Claude nodded at him, trying to fight the tears filling his eyes and the fire within slowly burning down his walls of control.

Ferocity would get him nowhere at this point. As aggravating as that was. They were being kept alive for reasons he didn't know.

When that sentiment changed-- if it did, he'd become the wildest thing on planet earth. He'd let Fenrir's way of life fill his mind like a flood. He'd dine on their hearts and kill everything he didn't recognize as pack.

Until then, he needed his mind. He needed to be the calm the others could call on.

He closed his eyes again.

"Where is Blackbeak?"

"[Off, he took to the skies when you first fled in the desert.]"

"....."

"[That's a smart bird you found there, Claude. Something tells me you two will meet again.]"

"Yea. Have to get out of here first."

"[Wherever here is...]" Arne replied.

In response, Claude opened his eyes once more. The blurred vision and spinning vortex of a world he once viewed in his stunned state had steadied.

The shadows were strong, but his eyes were stronger. They were in a canyon. A large one, the walls seemed to touch the clouds. And they ran so close together, all he saw was a crack of sunlight. It cut through the darkness and hit the floor in front of him.

A sliver of light that spread and fought off the shadows. For once, he didn't like the shadows. What they housed.

Cyclops'. Their eyes glowed like lanterns as they patrolled the area. Fiery red and purple lanterns that steamed like hell. Hell. It was written all over their HellBred forms. No longer simply one-eyed giant men. They now sported thick black horns. Some like Rhino's-- others like Ram's and bulls. Their skin blended with the shadows, a smokey black that deepened around their arms and midsections where red veins pulsed hellishly. They worked alongside the regular Cyclops, sniffing and grunting at them as if they were fighting the urge to engage in the art of cannibalism.

They moved around the grounds, stepping in and out of rooms cut into the canyon walls, while others went down stair cases ground into the floor and secured by black metal hatches, seemingly taking them to a sort of dungeon below ground. He could hear them, moving and working beneath the stone floor he stood on. Not only below, but above as well.

Holes, over a few hundred feet above ground, cut into the walls and connected by thick slimy black webbing created an upper level that threatened to eat up the remaining suns rays. Along the oily black webbings, he found himself watching HellBred Arachnoids, Kobolds and Hexenbiests crawling across it's length like monstrous insects to enter and exit rooms on the other side.

One of the Hexenbiests crawling along the insectoid tightrope stopped halfway across and looked down at him.

Her purple-red eyes watched him with hunger.

Claude growled and flashed his fangs, failing to remain completely composed.

The creature screeched before snapping at him with cheekless jaws and taking off into one of the corridors cut into the massive walls.

The sight reminded him of the last HellBred Hexenbiest he fought. He wouldn't have won if not for Maris, Isaac, Warren and Ursula's help. Things would be as different as he needed them to be this time around. He'd be damned if they weren't. Damned to hell.

"hehehehahaha....ehehe... you've gained a suprising amount of control since I last saw you, Clllllaude....."

The voice echoed from the top of the canyon walls and sent a shiver down Claude's spine.

"The red lightning... you didn't die under that Full Moon, did you?"

Claude looked up just in time to see the woman step off the ledge and fall. Almost like it were practiced, she slipped and spun out of the way of the thick black webs connecting the walls and hit the ground hard enough to crack the floor as she landed in a crouch.

The cloak that once hid her completely began to burn. Deep red flames and torrents of red lightning ate away at the fabric until her chuckling body was all that remained.

She looked so different. Her skin, ghostly pale and hair as black as the shadows around them. It was still held in a high ponytail, but that was about all that was familiar. She no longer wore the familiar Detection Corps uniform and badge. Now opting for light black steel armor that hugged her body as if it were painted on. He didn't get to see much though due to the WereWolf hide cloak she wore over her shoulders.

She stood up suddenly, her long braid of smoky black hair moved like a snake in the shadows. As she stared at him, the blackness surrounding her glowing red eyes seemed to spread and her black glossed lips smiled brightly, revealing fanged teeth.

"Long time no see, Clllllaude..... hehehe...."

Frosty went wild as she began her approach Claude, the switch of her hips was rhythmic-- like the swing of a deadly pendulum. He remembered her well. Naturally.

Claude fought to move, to prepare himself-- to do anything. Nothing. Only now did he realize his arms and legs were bound. Not by something simply physically restraining, but by a magic he felt pulling at his Mana...

When he looked up again, he found her only a few feet away, staring straight at him. Looking him over like a piece of meat.

Some things never change. Some things have always been there.

Like the Touch of the Desert. It's reach was even larger than he could've imagined. It's connections and motives something he couldn't even comprehend in the current moment. All he knew was, it was all distantly connected. The HellBred Hexenbiest. The HellBreeder. The Harpies. The Armaments. The Demonic Satyr. Whoever made the Centaurs fight for a chance at Demonic power. The Cyclops' filling the Tangent and the massacre of the Elven mother. And possibly more....

It was all connected to the Elven Murderer. And the Elven Murderer was the touch of the desert. A demonic hand that now had him in it's hold. A corrosive touch that had once fallen on SkyHaven and breathed demonic life into the bane of his existence.

She stood as living proof in front of him. Still a fanatic. Still a psychopath. Newly demonic.

She smiled suddenly, "Come on Cllllaude..... you know me." As she said it, she shivered and writhed. Her skin regained it's human luster and the black veins faded with the change of her eyes from flaming red to their familiar chocolate brown. Her hair even flashed to shining blonde once more.

It was like she was human again. But he could feel the darkness barely contained within.

"Shapeshifting..... how?"

She may have been changed, but she was the same as always.

"Cyrene...."