Lexa's palms were so sweaty, you would've thought she just dipped her hands in an ocean. Even as fur bloomed and the skin toughened like that of a wolves paw.
Her mother— Ms. Markos, always told her that the Garou's greatest strength was their rage. It could take them to incredible heights and brought about the crux of their power. The change.
But Lexa didn't feel much rage. She felt fear. She'd heard stories of bloodworms taking out entire villages in more remote parts of the globe.
They were a terrifying unification of Vampire and Bane. An insatiably hungry spirit that somehow grabbed hold of an insatiably hungry species.
She could feel it.
It's hunger as it slithered and spun through the forestry to pursue her. Its body rippled with virulent blood and malevolent essence. It's eyes were black holes sucking in every ounce of light in the night.
It wanted every piece of her.
And it was all scarier with the stakes in mind.
"I have one of very few Ahroun with me….. he hasn't experienced his first shift. He doesn't even look like the fabled warriors— he's frozen with fear. Our saving grace has his tail between his legs. But I haven't experienced my first shift either….. I'm just as scared. I don't know how to kill this thing..." Lexa thought before hooking her axe blade around a thin tree.
The curve caused her to spin around. With a wild snarl, she launched herself at the creature as it gave chase.
Without meaning to, she cleaved the tree in half with the force of her pull. Splinter shards surrounded her as she charged the blood warm with an overhead swing of her axe.
The bloodworm ducked low and legswept her with that blinding vampiric speed she'd never get used to. She was thrown off into the distance and crashed and burned in the dead leaf littered ground. Before she landed she knew her leg was shattered.
She could hear the other garou defending.
The pain was blinding.
But it was nothing compared to the rage.
Rage from failure.
Rage from defeat. Since her birth she'd been told time and time again how her kind was losing. They were dying. The apocalypse wasn't coming, they lived it. She lived it. A capitalistic grimdark slow burn of manufactured spiritual genocides and chemical warfare.
And now, she was at her end. A final failure. Failing to protect the Ahroun. The very thing her kind needed to end the apocalypse. It was like having a slab of meat dangled in front of you after being starved your whole life. Only to lose it because you're too weak to snatch it off the stick.
Too weak.
Too weak.
She shook as she laid on the ground. Gnosis flowed off her like aquamarine flames. Her skin darkened. Her partial form developed in a violent flash of snapping bones, bubbling muscle, tearing skin and flowing fur.
She hit the ground as a wolfish young girl in over her head and quickly rose as a fully established garou in her crinos form.
The spirits associated with the Black Furies rose with her. Ancient wolf spirits. Mother canids protecting their cubs, high flying pegasi circled her from the clouds and other uniquely formed entities better left undescribed. They welcomed their fully formed child into the physical and spiritual world with an envigorating boost of power that quickly enabled her frenzy.
What came from every garou's first change.
It was unavoidable.
The rage was untamable. The hunger was insatiable. Gaia flowed through her as she raised her axe and howled.
***
The sound was deafening to Amaru. It was jarring. Everything had happened entirely too fast. One moment he was being squashed by a nightmarish larvae-beast. The next, he was watching the goth aesthetic daughter of a bizzarely militant attorney transform into a…
"Werewolf.."
She was massive.
As a human appearing teenage girl she was large. Tall. Imposing. Thick legs and arms to match. Now she dwarfed her old self. She was seven feet tall with a massive snout. Her fur was as dark as the midnight sky minus the stars. She tore out of her leather clothes like they were made of one-ply toilet paper, revealing the streak of white running down her back. Like a skunk straight from hell.
A weird essence flowed off her raised hackles, distorting the air around her like some sort of fire or magic exhaust.
Weird shapes and forms surrounded her seemingly made of the same aquamarine flame.
The bloodworm turned and ran, coiling up a tree to avoid Lexa, the werewolf.
As a result, the bloodworm jumped over him and wrapped the tree behind him like a snake.
Lexa gave chase.
Amaru only knew because he felt her mass blow past him. Trailed by the two wolves.
She was so fast, he couldn't follow her with his eyes. Which was horrifying considering she had to be over five hundred pounds.
The worlds greatest running-back could never.
She jumped twenty feet into the air and latched onto the tree with thick black talons.
The bloodworm— who was only a few feet above her, looked down at her and roared a caustic miasma of giant mosquitos and blackish red mist.
Lexa— in a frenzy of sorts, didn't give a singular damn.
She snarled and leapt up the tree, slashing through the death cloud. She barked and yelped between leonine roars as the giant mosquitoes bit into her face and flooded her mouth. They grew to massive ulcer size full of bubbling glowing blood.
She pushed on, climbing up the tree after the bloodworm.
They rose until they hit the very top. The bloodworm was first.
Lexa was right behind and grabbed its fatty tail— if you could call it that.
They were so high up that Amaru could barely see them. He focused. He shivered.
He watched as Lexa pulled and raged until finally, she raised her axe and brought it down on the bloodworm's spine.
The chopping sound was so loud, Amaru could hear birds flee from their branches miles away.
She snarled victoriously and ripped the axe out. The werewolf roared, feeding on whatever evil essence was in the bloodworm.
She used her other hand and pulled the bloodworm down closer to her.
It wouldn't unwrap from the trees.
She wouldn't relent.
She was growing stronger. Amaru could feel it in the air. He could see it as more of the aquamarine magical exhaust flowed from her. Or entered her. He couldn't really tell beyond the supernatural glow.
She snarled and barked. Her muscles expanded. She dug her pawed feet deeper into the trees holds and yanked.
The bloodworm was ripped downward, snapping through branches and taking in thick wooden slivers due to the tightness of its grip.
The thing screamed in agony.
A true cry of pain. Different from the last.
Lexa raised her axe again and brought it down on its spine. This time further up. Closer to the head. The brain.
It's blood spurted like a geyser.
She let go of the axe and lunged up the tree, landing on the creatures back.
She bit and clawed at it in a wild rage.
It was brilliant. It was cathartic in a way he couldn't fully explain. Only witness.
His whole life, he'd been seeing things like the bloodworm. As a boy he was terrified. As a teen, he was disillusioned— confused— enraged. He fought his fears— only to find…. To be told, they weren't real.
And there she was. Fighting his greatest fear. In all its realness. It wasn't fading or turning back into the opposing teams defensive linemen.
It wasn't a passing sight on a drive to an away game in the big city.
It was real.
It tried to kill him.
It was dying.
And Lexa was killing it.
Amaru could only describe what he was experiencing as fascinating. Enticing.
More blood flowed. It covered Lexa as she vanquished the creature. The foul red smothered her. It made her gag as she swiped and slashed like a wild monkey. It made her sick. But she kept on. It ripped through her.
Amaru's heart skipped a beat.
Two glowing red spikes of blood— seemingly solidified by will, ripped through Lexa's chest and came out of her back.
She slowed.
Eyes wide. The pain of it seemingly turned her human brain back on.
The bloodworm chortled and bucked her off.
She fell sixty feet, hitting the ground so hard a small mushroom cloud of dust and dirt rose around her.
Her axe fell into the ground at Amaru's feet. The wild flame of power surrounding its dark bladed edges faded.
Amaru exhaled for the first time in a long time. Dread filled him— it covered him, in an ice cold sweat.
In a bizzare way, for a scarce ammount of moments, he was high on life. He wasn't tormented or afraid. He was envigorated.
And it was all over.
The wolves surrounded Lexa.
They put their paws on her back and a green burst of energy surrounded them. He could see her wounds heal in real time. They were trying to save her.
But it wasn't enough.
As the dust and dirt settled, he could see her facing him. Her snout was mangled down to the gums built over the bone. The monstrous mosquitoes and evil essence feeding on her face faded like smoke, revealing more hideous infected wounds. One of her entire cheeks was missing. Another one of her incisors was gone. Half of her gums were rotted and the hair on her head and neck was falling out.
Now so close, he could see that she was never winning. She was too wild to know how badly she was losing.
In a way, the bloodworm throwing her off was merciful, because if she stayed up in the trees, the things cruel magics would've ate her down to the brain and never stopped.
She panted in the dirt. Her yellow glowing eyes glossed over and she whined.
She was looking right at him.
"….r…rrr…un."
The bloodworm cackled and began racing down the tree, eager to finish the battle and have its meal.
It was growing.
Almost instinctively, Amaru knew it was because of Lexa's blood.
As it spiraled down the tree it lengthened. Dense muscles expanded its girth. The last vestiges of its human elements faded as its spinal wound became an aspect of its anatomy. The blood spikes erected from its back lengthened and curled into chitinous vermillion spider limbs. It's black eyes popped and warmed over with flesh as its nose expanded into a collection of sensitive holes where more hideous fat mosquitos were freshly born from shadowy eggs.
Like Lexa— who came as a girl and grew to a beast, the bloodworm came as nightmare and evolved into abject terror before their very eyes.
It hit the ground on blood spiked legs and hissed from an insectoid breeding ground of a face.
The wolves growled— still healing Lexa.
Time seemed to slow as Amaru became hyper aware of his surroundings.
"Hey."
Amaru turned and found a familiar face— or lack thereof, standing beside him.
The man he saw in his dreams. The hooded man who spoke with Ms. Markos and referred to himself as a mage. An ascended one. Wesley. He came again as a sort of apparition. Ghostly in his near translucent presence.
"I'll be quick. You're all they've got. But that's more than enough. You're an Ahroun. A warrior. They— you, can't always tell, because you're weakened. Bound. By me. At Firetongue's request. But you're old enough now. You don't need it." Wesley dug into his longcoat and pulled out a bundle of fur bound by a string.
It looked familiar somehow.
"Just say the word. And you're free. Free to fight at your fullest. Free to feel the world as it is. Free to see it all….. free to rage." Wesley said.
Amaru grabbed at the bundle of fur only for his hand to phase through the image.
Wesley laughed, "That's the spirit. Go raise hell. It's what your father would've wanted."
Wesley grinned as he ripped the string off the bundle of fur and let the strands blow in the wind.
Almost immediately a chasm was formed. Or released. Or healed.
Something great changed within and outside of Amaru.
The world gained a new sheen. The skies held new levels and details. The weight of existence doubled as fresh concepts flourished in an instant.
It wasn't beautiful.
It was terrifying.
And he couldn't process it because the evolved bloodworm was on the move.
Quickly, he was reminded of that feeling.
Lexa was doing it. Fighting the fear. Giving him peace.
And now his fears were about to kill her.
His peace was so close. Just to be taken from him.
There was nothing left to do but follow the instinct.
There was nothing left to do but to rage.
No fear, no hesitation.
Only….
Amaru was on the move before he knew it in a burst of speed that cracked the earth.
The evolved bloodworm skittered after the wolves and wounded werewolf.
Closing the distance with terrifying speed.
Amaru sped up the process and met the monster halfway.
It rose up with its pincer legs raised to run through his defenders.
Amaru appeared in a blur of movement. Just as the red spikes came down.
He caught them with his bare hands.
The bloodworm hissed in his face. A face of sunken flesh over a near deteriorated human skull from the bugs birthed inside.
No fear. Only rage.
Amaru gritted his teeth. His lip bled from the fangs growing. His hands burned from the gnosis flowing.
A tingling sensation spread from his spine. He let it take him over.
The bloodworm strained.
His grip tightened.
His body grew. Muscles bulged. Bones broke. Fur sprouted.
The bloodworms pincer limbs cracked like glass under pressure.
One moment it's assault was being held back by a boy.
The next it was standing face to face with a nine foot tall brindle furred beast of Wolven origin.
Amaru didn't howl.
He ripped the bloodworms legs out and ran them through its stomach.