Blade and Fang. Part 1.5.

Hey! I hope this finds you well, as always!

What can I say but 26K Views in English and another 16K In Spanish!

I LOVE ALL OF YOU DEARLY. 

You keep me and this crazy story going, really you do.

I hope that I can keep writing for you until you either give up on me or I die lol. 

Hopefully, that won't be for some time lol -neither of those things- I am only 35 years old lol.

I won't keep you waiting, I hope you all are healthy, safe, and as happy as you possibly can be.

If not, I hope that this helps change that mindset or mood.

See you all back here soon enough yeah?

I present to you: "Blade and Fang. Part 1.5."

Enjoy!

And off we go!

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The Beast was on Its knees, surrounded still by the resilient yet wary Watchmen. 

The annoyingly agile Soldier Captain before It, crouched and holding a what appeared to the Beast to be either a long knife of an extremely short sword alongside Its claw-torn shield. 

The Watchmen closed in a single step, half of them held long, menacing polearms while the others wielded the accursed flairs. The ring that they composed grew that much smaller as they closed in on It from all sides.

The burning light from the much-too-bright Aetheral lanterns forced Its eyelids low.

Lower than the bloodless that would be Its end if It could not see to the removal of the damdable sword.

The gleaming weapon protruded from it's chest less than an inch from it's massive, pounding heart. Any closer and the attack may have very well taken Its life. 

It had to do something.

Anything.

It had met Its match for once...

A human that could keep up with It...

A human that could battle It to a stand still...

A human that could possible take the curse on as his own...

It had to get the sword out of Its chest.

The man before It began to move in Its direction, leaving the Beast with but seconds to react.

It had but one choice now...

One chance to get away from this village and make an escape.

One move that It could make being so surrounded as It was at the moment.

At Its feet Its own blood pooled and would continue to do so until the deep, penetrating wound was the death of It. 

It would either take these men with It, or at least do all that It could to get the curse to attach to one of them before Its life force faded away. It would do Its best to not let them take It alive after the curse was passed along. 

It...no, HE couldn't live with all of the horrible things that he...It...had done.

The man inside of the monster was slipping away more and more by the second.

His sanity and humanity both withering with each transformation.

His memories of what...who he once was were becoming more and more distant and foggy with every day that The Beasts Aether swirled and mixed with that of his own, pulling his further from the light and deeper still into the grip of the beasteal mind. 

It had been in control for to long.

For to many moons.

To many lives taken by his...Its hands.

To much destruction and pain wrought in Its wake. 

And worse still, the curse that the Skin-Witches had places on him was so closely intertwined with a dark and potent anti-death sigil that he would never truly be allowed to die for as long as the curse coursed through his blackened veins. 

He had to pass it on before he was killed or he would simply wake several days later in a shallow grave, wrapped in the body of The Beast and digging his way out in a rage, hunger, and vengeance-fueled rampage.

It was a never-ending cycle of torture... 

Wake.

Rage.

Kill.

Drink.

Fight.

Hide.

Be hunted down.

"Die:

Wake.

Repeat.

Until he was inevitably hunted down, cornered, and "killed" by some group or another.

Some city's Knighthood.

Some mercenary monster hunting group.

This was different, as he had never been faced with a singular opponent that could get the job done for once and for all.

He was done with it.

All of it.

He no longer cared about whatever scraps of his life that was left outside of The Beast.

He really didn't have one.

Wake.

Rage.

Kill.

Drink.

Fight.

Hide.

Be hunted down.

"Die:

Wake.

Repeat.

This was no exaggeration. 

He was would end it tonight.

He would embrace sweet, silent death. 

And now, he actually could.

He, for once in an excruciatingly long time, had a chance to do something to break the loop.

Even if he had to pass on the burden of The Beast to someone else...

He had found his match, no IT had found its match.

HE had found his way out.

He doubted that The Beast would just let him let them die.

He would have to try to take back as much control as he could in some pivotal moment in this fight and use that opportunity to let the man before him land a lethal blow.

He would have to wait until The Beast wounded the man in some matter, It would have to get past the man's sharp defence and draw blood with either claw of fang. 

He had lived this lie and life for long enough.

He could wait just a bit longer.

He would.

He let what was left of himself fade again back into the small, dark corner of "his" mind.

He would rest and bide his time. He would draw as much of his own Aether to himself as he could.

He would end this.

The Beasts was on all its hands and knees now.

It had very little energy left as it began to grow lightheaded from the rapid blood loss. 

It felt strange.

It felt off...unbalanced.

It sensed the faint presence of the human within it cowering somewhere in the back of Its mind.

It was a nuisance.

The Beast was only weak in its core were the deflated consciousness of the man still existed. 

Where the shards of humanity that remained huddled together waited patiently to try to take back control...

To gain back the reins and do away with The Beast.

It would do what it had to do to make sure that this did not come to pass.

The Beast was not fond of the idea of being seperated from this one just yet. It had taken quite some time for It to gain the level of power and influence over him that it now had.

It was less fond of the idea of starting over in a new flesh shell.

It had twisted and torn the soul and will of the man whose body It occupied so much that It was almost fully in control when the transformation was complete. 

A new host meant a new soul to break.

A new Aether pool to adjust to and dominate.

That was all more than It cared to have to repeat...

With that being said, it was time to make Its grand escape.

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Genrik crouched before the monserouse dog-thing.

His battle-scarred shield raised to his nose and at the ready. 

His combat knife in his right hand and eager for blood.

This thing had ravaged the land for long enough.

He had decided that it was beyond both his mercy and his choice to space The Beast.

The shuttered homes that surrounded him and his men were filled with people who were undoubtedly watching. They would expect him to avenge the young rookie Watchmen who had fallen at this creatures hands. 

He honestly expected no less of himself. 

He was no longer a Knight.

His was a banner and title of his own making.

He didn't have to abide by some moral and law-binding code anymore.

He didn't have to capture and question this...thing.

He doubted that it could even speak...

He would do what the situation called for, not what he was ordered to do.

He had no more orders to follow.

None but his own.

He would lay the monster low and take the body to Theodora.

Maybe there they could make some sense of it.

They had no place here in there shabby little village to hold it should it be captured anyway.

Genrik steeled his resolve and set his right heel.

He would charge and offer a feigned attack with his dagger before retrieving his sword with which he would deal the final blow. 

With a quick glance at the men around him, he gave a quick and wordless signal.

The ring of men moved at once one que with their brave and dauntless leader, taking a single step forward and lowering the poles in unison.

Four razor-sharp blades advanced.

Four brilliantly blazing lanterns move in, further illuminating the stage of battle. 

Genrik beant low at the knee and shot forward. 

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The Beast lifted his head as the man approached.

The world seemed to slow to a quarter of it's natural speed.

Its left lung had all but collapsed due to the sword that was still stuck fast where the man had shoved it, but one lung was all that he would need at such close range.

It took a single step backward, a spear-tip found his lower left back and dug in.

It ignored the pain.

It would be gone soon.

The Beast inhaled rapidly, sucking in as much air as its damaged body would allow.

Its barrel-like check swelled to nearly twice its base size.

It arched its back and reared back its massive head.

It would use Its Breaking Howl to devastate them and hopefully kill the lone soldier.

At this close range, this was almost certain. 

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-Two yards.-

The men around It all moved at once, their weapons closing in just like so many dozens before.

Spears reached for The Beast, the three that were not already as imbedded as the one in its back.

-One yard.-

The lead man leapt.

The knife posed and ready to strike.

The spears pierced Its ribs, thigh, and stomach.

The lanterns flared a bright and mighty flash.

The men yelled a valorous battle cry. 

The Beasts snapped his head forward and let loose the blast of sound and pressure that it had bided. 

The air around The Beast was hypercharged with Aether and forced away from It. 

Such was the pent up energy, that all eight men were lifted from their feet and thrown in all manner of direction and at all angles, their shouts of victory quicky becoming screams of terror and surprise. 

Chaos erupted as gravity itself seemed to fail for a handful of seconds.

Three of the Watchmen were slammed mercifully into and through the walls of nearby homes.

Two more struck nearby trees and their bodies bent and twisted at the base and in the branches respectively. Both died on impact.

The pair that were behind The Beast took the least of the blast, tumbling across the ground unceremoniously yet not fatally. 

The two that flanked Genrik where killed immediately by the concussive blast, their brains and organs scrambled inside of their bodies and light armor. 

Genrik himself had managed to get his shield up and before his face and chest just in time to mitigate the worst of the astounding wave that hit him. 

He had also manages to drop his knife and grab hold of the hilt of his trusty longsword just as he was thrown up and away, yanking it free as he was taken. It slipped from the gaping wound as if The Beasts body were a fleshy sheath. 

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Kals never broke her stride as she wove between the tall, thin threes at full tilt.

She didn't lessen her pace in the least as she leapt atop the very same wall that The Beast had perched on no more than half an hour before.

The very same wall from which she had heard him howl.

She didn't slow even a bit as she kicked off of that wall and landed nimbly atop the very same roof that The Beast had landed on no more than half an hour before.

The very same house from which he had killed the young and headless human that she had passed.

She didn't blink as she tore her deadly Rapier from its sheath.

She was hardly breathing as she caught sight of the...

That thing.

The monster that had taken everything from her.

That thing.

"The Beast." as the bounty on its head had called it.

As the cowardly King of Theodora has labeled it...

Her target.

Her only goal and ambition for the past two years. 

This was it.

She would hold nothing back.

The Beast would fall here and now by her blade and her blade alone.

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Welcome back to the gates folks!

I hope that this newest instalment is enough to hold you all over! 

Feel free to recap on some of the earlier chapter folks! Part 2 is not so far of into the future, and you all have been the biggest inspiration that i could ever ask for! 

I will see you al back here soon enough yeah?

I love you all, and I look forward to having here for another thrilling tale before you know it lol.

Until then, and as always, safe travels folks!

Stay safe.

 Stay healthy.

 Stay vigilant.

-Redd.