1- Pilot

(A/N- I want to preface this by acknowledging that there is another story on here that is sort of similar. It's called Frostbitten by Carlosdr3vna. I'm reading it myself so I recommend you check it out.)

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It was a darker night than most, the moon taking on a crescent shape and shining nearly no light onto the dark forest underneath its celestial gaze. The forest itself was supremely serene, possibly being the quietest night all year.

It was so nice that if there had been more light, the soft blanket of snow on the ground would have made the prettiest of sparkles across its landscape. It was so beautiful that you'd think that it had to have been a painting by a master artist, meant to be treasured for a lifetime.

But that peace was destroyed by a blur passing through the landscape, barely making a mark on the snow despite running so fast. Then there was another, this time shorter, but bigger than the first. Then another, and another, and another, all chasing the blur streaking through the frozen forest.

It turned out that the aforementioned blur was a young boy, barely over 13 years old. The boy had bleak black hair and eyes a blue-green hybrid so vibrant you could only compare it to an ancient glacier.

The boy's name was Aster Alba, meaning 'Star' and 'Bright White' respectively. The name Aster was also Greek, being the boy's only clue about his heritage.

See he had been unceremoniously dropped off at an orphanage at a very young age by his father, who he would barely remember now. Though he would always remember his father's last words to him that day.

"You're a cursed child. Wherever you go, disaster follows." The man told him.

And so far, he had been right. Ever since he could remember, he had strange things happen to him. Things that could never, ever be called normal or even chance.

Being chased by a flock of astonishingly angry birds, nearly kidnapped by a very tall and fat man wearing strange sunglasses, and now he was once again being chased by a group of strange monsters.

Or rather hunted.

Yips and howls rang out on Long Island, far enough from the city that nearly no one traveled out this far. After running away from the orphanage, Aster had been living out here in the woods on his own.

While it was hard, it also strangely came much easier than it should have. He rarely went into the city proper so he had to hunt for food on his own. The strange part was how he got that food.

Every month, like clockwork, a buck would appear in a clearing not far from the cave he had commandeered. With the bow and arrow he had stolen, it was easy pickings as even when it noticed him it didn't run away.

But that life had been ruined when these... wolves appeared and started hunting him down like he was prey. Aster called them monsters because they had glowing red eyes and there was the fact that they were much larger than they should have been.

'A little farther, a little farther and I should be able to find a spot to hide.' He thought, remembering that there was some kind of strawberry farm close by.

'Why anyone would make a field of only strawberries is a mystery that eludes me. I mean really? Strawberries?' Aster thought, distracted by the type of farm he was running to. He knew it was bad to do when running, but he relished being distracted by the hungry growls of the hounds on his heels.

'If there's anyone out there that can hear me, please send me some help.' Aster's thoughts were brought back to his situation and he subconsciously prayed, not expecting anything in return.

But suddenly there was a blur of something that was whipped by him as he ran, and he thought it was one of the hounds until he noticed that he was now carrying something in his hands. It was a utility belt, with a note sticking out of the pocket.

Still running for his life, Aster grabbed the note and read it over quickly, glossing over the fact that it had magically appeared in his hands.

[Here's a little gift from a few of us. Hope you enjoy it, and I recently picked up a liking for barbecue.]

-H.

Shoving the note into the back pocket of his jeans and clicking the belt to his waist, Aster opened the main pouch in the front. Doing so, his hand hit a cylindrical object. Pulling it out, it well... looked like a cylinder with a little cone at the end of it.

Only it was made of some kind of gold-yellow metal and perfectly fit into his hand, Aster being able to easily wrap his palm around it. It also had some kind of word written across its side.

[Kryopágima]

'Frostbite.' How he knew what it meant was lost to him, but he did find a small button sitting opposite the pointy end. 'Is this a mechanical pen?'

Shrugging the strangeness aside, Aster clicked it just for the hell of it. Not like he'd have much time to regret playing around with it anyway.

But something happened that he would have never dreamt of. The pen started shifting in his hand, pannels sliding out and producing material from inside. It was so much that it made absolutely no sense how it all fit in the little pen, but it didn't seem to care about that.

Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, a bronze scythe was resting between his hands. It, just like the forest around him was beautiful. Though he didn't have much experience with weapons, he could tell it was a masterpiece of a blade.

Frostbite was made almost entirely of the strange goldish metal, the only other part being the dark blue stained leather woven into the shaft. The leather itself had little white highlights of winter wind and snowflakes floating in said wind.

The shaft was also crafted in such a way that it could bend much in the way that wood can, it having tiny little slits down its backside in order to do so. Though he could tell that it wasn't any weaker because of it.

The most important part was the blade, being longer than his arm at around 3.5 to 4 feet long from shaft to tip. This part was also decorated by drifting snowflakes, all flowing down to the tip and joining together to make it all white in color.

All in all, it was a masterpiece created in such a way to be a perfect weapon. And he got it just in time as when he finally ripped his eyes off the blade, one of the hounds was in front of him.

Stopping in his tracks, Aster held the scythe so the blade was near his feet but pointing out in front of himself. Turning in a slow circle, he saw that four of the hellish hounds had surrounded him in all cardinal directions.

Completing his circle, he once again faced the direction that he had been running in. Quickly surveying the nearby area, he was almost distracted by a massive pine tree rising far into the sky dwarfing the nearby trees.

However, he wasn't able to think about it for long as he heard a rumbling growl behind him and the sound of something heavy hitting the snow. Whipping around, scythe spinning with him, his new weapon sliced right into the hound's chest, reaching through to the other side.

However, his reaction was a little late, as the beast was able to land a scratch down his left eye before breathing its last. Ignoring the wound, Aster retrieved his weapon from the corpse and spun again.

Only this time he bent down low, leaning over on one foot and hand, swinging his right foot and hand. The hand, that held Frostbite, met some minor resistance as he felt the blade glide through flesh, then bone, then flesh again.

Righting himself, he saw that his prompt attack had been successful in disarming the hound. Literally. The hound that had lunged for him was now missing one of its forelimbs, bleeding dark, fetid blood profusely.

'One down, three left, one injured.' He assessed, keeping track of his situation.

The hounds began to move with newfound passion now that one of their kin was dead, the injured one taking the rear. The other two rushed him simultaneously, from his front right and left respectively.

Glacier eyes darting around, Aster made a precise set of steps, making it look almost like he was dancing. And it was a dance, one his mother had taught him long ago.

Hands and feet moving in a blur of motion, and his scythe slashed through the air, forming a strange shape. From his top right, he brought the blade down diagonally, curving it upwards, then back down to his right hip, forming an incomplete infinity sign.

And although beautiful, it served a different purpose. The hounds having leaped at different times, Aster attacked the closest first, slashing its head in two before quickly moving on.

Bringing the blade up from his left hip, the blade pierced into the second hound's jaw. Though the attack surely didn't kill, so he instinctually twirled the blade back around and hooked the back of its head, tearing it open as the scythe traveled back to his right side.

As the motion was completed, both hounds flopped to the ground behind him, dead. 'Three down. One remaining.' He thought, raising his head to see the final hound.

And what he saw... was its back end. The injured hound was sprinting away as fast as it could, realizing it had met a powerful foe.

Aster took a step forward as if to give chase before he suddenly lost strength in his legs. Falling to his knees, he frowned as if confused by his sudden weakness. But before he could question it, his vision quickly turned black and he fell onto his stomach.

Despite winning the fight, it seemed Astser had passed out having used up all the strength in his young body. Though it seemed he wasn't as alone as he thought he was, as multiple sets of feet approached his unconscious body, stopping as they noticed his collapsed figure lying in the snow surrounded by blood and corpses.