Friday Morning, September 21st, 546 ALW. Fennur's Heart, North-Eastern Glacial Regions....
Makari and Zehru sat on their steel-plank sleds in absolute silence. Disappointed silence at that, as the ground shook and clouds of uprooted snow fell in their wake.
"He's not very bright...." Zehru commented as he watched with his brother, "And that panther isn't so graceful.... or stealthy."
"I get how the Lycan's lost to the bloodsuckers, now." Makari said.
"Too soon." Zehru replied.
"Dude.... it's been five hundred years." Makari huffed.
The twins fell into silence suddenly.
Zehru turned his head, "Is that how we looked? When we first tried it, I mean…"
"I think so. But we were pups. This guy is a man...."
"A man who beat the snot out of Berkaal."
"I'm starting to think that was a dream." Makari said.
The ground shook again.
In the distance, Konan exploded from underneath the snowdrifts in a single powerful leap. He soared, eyes wide and muscles tensed as he landed behind the Beast-Spirit in an explosion of snow and ice.
Before the miasma of frost could settle, he was up into the air again as the Beast-Spirit darted around down the hill.
"How many more times is he going to do this before he realizes Spike is too fast?" Makari asked.
Zehru took a deep breath, "Wolves are persistent hunters.... unfortunately."
Makari moved to speak again only for his hair to burst into flame as his body went stiff and he fell flat on his plank of steel.
Zehru stood up, "Really?? Right now?" Zehru steered his plank closer to his brother, drifting in the snow before leaping off of his plank and landing on top of Makari.
He shook violently, spitting tufts of flame and orange lightning from his mouth.
Zehru took a deep breath, "One day this won't hurt. That's what Mother said.... KONAN! LISTEN!"
Zehru couldn't wait for him to notice and grabbed his brother's hand. His own hair burst into flames before calming into a focused aura of heat. It wasn't perfect. Flames popped and electricity spun along their arms and legs where they were connected, but Makari didn't shake so violently anymore.
When he grabbed his brothers' other hand, the Beast-Energy flows calmed further. Their fiery aura's became a second skin of energies that took on an icy edge. They both stiffened and entered a unified trance to speak words in a voice belonging to neither.
"It comes from below."
Konan heard the chilling words as he soared through the air, joined by a memory of something sleek and black in speeding movement. He couldn't make out what he'd seen. Too fast. Too large. It could've been a building falling. Or an ocean rushing in midnight.
He landed again. More to the left now as he realized the Beast-Spirit was more reactive to left side charges. The highspeed creature of myth dashed to the right in response. So fast, he missed it by blinking.
"One more, Nuwe..." He felt the Beast-Energy currents coursing through him. Holding it within was a hard task. He couldn't make it stop-- it had to stay moving. He circulated the energies through his limbs, letting off small bits to power his leaps into the air.
He did so a final time, lost in the hunt as the earth shook again.
He landed hard on it's left flank. The Spirit-Beast cut right so sharply it started to run sideways across the mountain slope.
Nuwetara burst from underneath the snow right in front of the Spirit-Beast, slashing at the beasts eyes with her curled feline claws.
Naturally, Spike spun around to evade.
Konan had been waiting under the snow. Charged with chaotic Beast-Energy. As he crouched in the white frost, it danced on his skin. The aura of power felt amateur at best. Unbalanced. Poorly controlled and inefficiently used. But used all the same. It illuminated his wolf-gold eyes. He focused the rest of the energy in his legs and took off in a blur.
When the Spirit-Beast moved the opposite direction to evade Nuwetara, it didn't have enough time to avoid him.
Konan tackled the beast.
The two rolled down the mountain, sometimes as normal speed, sometimes moving so fast, it looked like they were teleporting down the hill until finally, Konan rolled to a stop on top of the Spirit-Beast with his sharpened teeth sunk into it's neck.
It's blood was hot and volatile. Holding the vibrating epitome of power and speed was both exhilarating and terrifying.
He could feel the familiar shocking energies begin to enter him as the beast slowed it's resistance.
Eventually, the Beast-Spirit died. The hunt was over. Immediately, it's soldified form exploded into raw Beast-Energy that soaked into Konan's skin.
It did the same for the twin's as they arrived on one metal plank, unconscious and unaware as they slowly woke.
Everyone felt the change. Both internal and external. Physical and mental. Existential and deeply personal. Not only had they taken a life-- they'd enacted with true nature. They reclaimed history. Something beyond ancient history.
Konan looked down at himself. His veins bulged and pulsed with blue energy. His fingers twitched in high-speed blurs. He could feel something spinning in his higher mind--
"Konan." Zehru was up first, "Did you hear the message? We said something didn't we?"
"If I had a seizure, we definitely did. That only happens when a Spirit wants to say something. No manners on those guys by the way..." Makari groaned as he rubbed his forehead.
Konan instantly remembered as the thrill of the hunt died down, "It comes from below...."
"What does? Another Spirit-B--" Before Makari could finish speaking, the ground shook again.
Konan had already wasted enough time. He sprinted after the twins, grabbing them by the arms to throw them back towards the hill. Back towards home.
The ground rippled and popped as plates and sheets of ice separated.
Konan ran the other way. Him and Nuwetara managed a few steps before the frozen earth exploded and sent them both flying across the field of ice.