6 Rough Night

Avior ran! He didn't know where, or for how long. He just ran!

Pure energy was pulsing through his entire body –WAS his body. Raw _POWER_! He was high on it! But it was too much to bear.

Only on the outer fringes of his fading consciousness did he register that something wasn't right. A small voice in the back of his head told him, to get a hold of himself.

But he couldn't! He was too pumped up, needed to release the pent-up energy!

But how? His mind was clouded, drunk on power and the primal drive to _USE IT_, overloaded by the myriads of screaming sensations. The cool night air lashing against his speeding form, the smell of moss and trees and animals, the sounds of the wind rustling through leaves! All so strong, yet barely registered.

Avior's consciousness slipped even further.

Not watching where he ran in his daze, Avior crashed through a tree! But it didn't stop him. _TOO WEAK_. He stumbled for a moment, caught his footing, and started sprinting again.

Like a nightmarish beast, he rushed through the forest. Sometimes on two, sometimes on four legs, sometimes using his claws to catapult himself forward.

'Claws?'

With great effort, Avior forced his consciousness back into place, even if just temporarily. His body jerked around, lost balance, and fell. Still foggy-brained but at least aware, he assessed his situation.

The transformation had obviously gone wrong. But not entirely. He had transformed into a misty, constantly shifting figure! Always in motion, the silver mist that made up and surrounded his body continuously congealed into different amalgamations of wolf and human features.

A child with the horrible jaws of a wolf and silver-furred hands adorned with sharp claws, a wolf without a tail bit the weak limbs of a child; a wolf-man with a random and everchanging configuration of parts of wolf and boy.

For the first time in a while, genuine fear crept into Avior's heart.

He had no idea how -or if- he could reverse his current situation. A normal werewolf transforms back when the full moon sets. But he transformed without the moon, he transformed by will. A change brought by will must be undone by will. That, or someone killed him, which he didn't believe any single person in this world capable of.

A sudden gust of wind brought the smell of a deer from not too far away to his muzzle. Avior's control was immediately challenged as his consciousness was assaulted by the instinctual urge to _HUNT_!

'NO!' He tried to resist.

Part of him wanted to give in, surrender to the _JOY_ of the _HUNT_. He wanted to run down his _PREY_!

But he fought it-

_HUNT_PREY_WEAK_

Both sides of him fought against each other! His body staggered torn between sanity and instinct but slowly moving in the direction of the sweet scent.

_RUN_BITE_BITE_PREY_TEAR_HUNT_

'No! I will NOT! I am in CONTROL!' With all the willpower he could muster, Avior forced himself to stop moving.

_PREY_NEAR_HUNT_TEAR_

Avior took another step. He stopped himself. A low growl escaped his throat. The frustration drove him mad! A wailing howl ripped through the night as he vented all of his desperation, fear, anger, frustration, and bloodlust!

The constant shifting of his body halted, finally settling for a complete but torn wolfman form.

Having let everything out, Avior stumbled and fell.

_PREY_GOne_Hunt_

Avior was exhausted. Not physically, but mentally.

He had won.

The energy still pulsed through his body, the urge to hunt was still there. But he had control over it. At least for now.

He tried to get up, and though his legs were still weak, a few minutes later and supported by a tree trunk, he was standing.

With deep breaths, he did his best to replicate the feeling he had when he botched the transformation earlier.

With each uneven and rustling breath, he focused as best as he could on the blood flow in his body. Which was difficult, considering he still had to spend much of his willpower on keeping his wild side in check.

He was puzzled when he couldn't detect a normal blood flow until he turned his attention to the pulse of energy instead. Avior vaguely remembered the pulse starting just before the energy had swept away his consciousness. So instead of a blood pulse, he tried to calm down the energy pulse.

Take in a deep breath, hold it, let everything out, repeat. After several cycles, Avior realized that while the exercise had little effect on the pulse itself, he now felt much more connected to his body and the energy. He now felt like this body was actually his. He was in control. Even the constant nagging of his hunting instinct had decreased dramatically.

Avior willed his body to transform.

With the image of a human body in mind, he willed his claw to recede, his fur to vanish, and his form to return to that of a human child. And slowly they did. He managed to subdue the energy still rampaging inside; with each pulse came another wave crashing against the tightening boundaries of the frail human form. The temptation to give in to the power it promised and just cut loose was great, but Avior resisted. And after ten arduous minutes, a young boy stood in the place of the ferocious predator.

With the transformation undone, Avior heaved a sigh of relief. As the tension seeped away, all the mental and physical stress, the inner turmoil and fatigue overwhelmed him assailed and overwhelmed him at once.

Avior slumped over and vomited, emptying his stomach. And when his stomach was empty, he lay there, propped up on his arms, and dry-heaving.

It took him quite a while to gather his bearing, though he wasn't sure how long.

'At least I feel better now.'

As soon as he was able to move, he stood up and thought about the way back to the orphanage. Now with a clear mind, he somewhat recalled the path he had taken as a beast.

"Thankfully, savage-me's thought process was quite simple. It ran straight ahead with only two minor shifts in direction. Let's see…I started in the quarry… which means," Avior turned on the spot to help himself mentally tracing the path, "if I continue in that direction… I end up in the next town. Then I need to go that way."

Now with a rough direction, Avior got going. He didn't plan to return to the quarry tonight, too much had already happened and he was exhausted. And if his estimation was correct, he had only a few more hours left until dawn.

On the way back, Avior noticed that some things had changed, but in his current state, he was neither interested nor clear-headed enough to stop and investigate.

He was dead-tired and his body was still relatively weak, but thanks to his supernatural werewolf physique he could still travel at superhuman speed. During the trip, his thoughts were mostly a repeating cycle of 'When I get back, I don't ever want to leave my bed ever again', 'This was an incredibly stupid idea, even by my standards', and 'I am glad I picked my already torn clothes tonight; I need to find a way to smuggle them into the laundry or they'll get too smelly'. The last one developed into a real problem for Avior's tired brain. He wouldn't be able to take the shame of being caught due to dirty laundry.

He could picture it, how one of the caretakers fished his torn clothes out from behind the closet and a foul smell permeating the room. The stench of a dirty animal, like a wet, mud-caked dog, mixed with the putrid smell of sickness and the emetic, sweet-sickening scent of rot. The image was so strong, he could almost smell it!

'Hold up!' Avior stopped dead in his tracks and sniffed the air. "That's not just my imagination!" He scanned the surroundings but found nothing of note. He carefully followed the smell, ready to turn tail at a moment's notice.

A ten minutes later and he cowered in the bushes only a hundred meters from the entrance to a small shaft

'The abandoned mine', he thought. 'Of course it's the abandoned mine.'

For a moment he just sat there.

"Nah, not today. I am too tired for this shit right now."

He could tell, even if he wasn't entirely sure how that the smell was at least two to three weeks old. Judging by how strong it still was, it would still be there when he was back in shape. He could always investigate it later.

So instead he readjusted the route back to the orphanage and continued on his way. With the mine as a reference point, he realized that his original route had been slightly off and he would have missed his destination by almost a kilometer. Now back on the right track, he sneaked back into his room only half an hour later.

There he took off his clothes, threw them back behind the closet, and went to bed, determined to never leave it again.

The next morning came too fast and abrupt for Avior, and it came also with the intention to help Avior make good on his promise.

Mrs. Davies, the matron, came to his room to get him when he didn't wake up on time. And apparently, he looked as bad he felt. Because the moment she laid her eyes upon him he had called the doctor.

The rest of the day flew by and Avior experienced everything through a feverish haze.

Not long after getting dragged out of bed, he found himself in the doctor's waiting room, then in his office, and only a moment later back in bed, this time per doctor's orders. He was to remain in bed for the next two weeks.

'Fine by me', Avior thought and went back to sleep.

During his prescribed rest period, Avior actually did what he was supposed to and stayed in bed. Which wasn't much of a sacrifice. In fact, he came to appreciate it, as his first transformation had drastically changed his overall condition.

For one, it had taught him to not carelessly experiment with strange and unknown powers. His actions had consequences, a lesson he had learned but all too often ignored or disregarded in his past life, and he couldn't count on his system to help carry the burden for him.

Its silence during this whole episode told Avior exactly one thing, the system didn't care about him as long as he fulfilled his role. Whether he did so as himself or as a wild beast was not of its concern.

With that thought in mind, another question arose naturally. "What would happen if were I to be seen as a hindrance to the system's main task." Avior furrowed his brow. He'd rather not learn the answer.

On the body front, the transformation seemed to consolidate his existence as a werewolf further.

The silver energy had fused with his blood and now ran constantly through his body. For this reason, Avior had dubbed the energy 'moon blood'.

As the moon blood was flowing through his body, it led to more and more modifications. Most notably, it replaced a lot of the tissue it came in contact with. At this rate, his entire body would sooner later be completely composed of moon blood. He was not yet sure what exactly that would mean.

His senses also got a lot sharper. He could now hear everything that happened within the entire orphanage and his motion and dark vision got a lot better. His sense of smell, of course, also got a boost. Which Avior speculated, was most likely the reason he had picked up the smell from the mine that night.

He would need to investigate it sometime. He also needed to further study the changes of his constitution, though he would be more careful next time. And he got to use the summoning ticket someday, never mind the fact that he still had no idea how he should influence the magical world.

There was so much to do.

[Bing!]

Right then he was interrupted by the system.