Jungle Fever

[Silence Sei]

(Closed to EI and Revenant)

"And the large knight that said he would help?"

"Jensen called him a pussy and he lopped his head off."

Sei made an unheard sighed as he went through the list. He had been in Berevar for three days now. He had traveled here with his 'bodyguards', for lack of a better word. Sei was becoming an important figure, and though he could handle himself, having three Knights of Apocalypse with him didn't hurt in debuffing would be assassins. Sei had also brought along his friend William Arcus in an attempt to get the Revenant and his primary guard, Jensen, to actually accept one another as friends.

"The beautiful young lady from the other day?"

"Jensen slapped her on her butt and said he'd love to go along with, and I'm paraphrasing here, 'Sugarboobs Hotass'."

The telepath found Jensen's antics endearing, but he came off as an uncaring jerk to most other people. It made Anita question her father's sanity to trust his life primarily to a man who used the F word more than a wounded Salvarian sailor. Anita continued to look through her notes. The group was trying to find a guide to get them through the wilderlands. Sei had been hearing tales of people disappering into the woods to never return. Such rumors had a basis somewhere, so Sei had decided to travel to Berevar and investigate.

After all, the Ixian Knights were going to be known throughout all of Althanas soon. It was his duty to let the people know that even the far reaches of Berevar was protected by his people. Sei looked over to Stephanie and Adolph, Jensen's Apocalypse Knight allies. Stephanie tried to stifle a laugh at Anita's observation, and that brought a smile to the mute's face as well. At least someone was taking some amusement at this.

"Basically, Jensen has single-handidly pissed off every single person we've asked to be our guide. We're running out of people." Sei nodded in response to his daughter while still maintaining eye contact with the other knights. "Okay. Here's the plan. The next person who offers to help us, the two of you keep his mouth covered at all cost. No matter what, don't let Jensen get a word out til we're already on our way out, got it?" Stephanie and Adoplh nodded to Sei in a respectful manner.

With that, Sei stood up from the bed of his hotel room. He knew that Jensen was probably still asleep in his room. William Arcus was probably ready to go by now however. Sei began to shift past his two body guards as he made his way into the cozy inn's hallways. Walking two doors down, Sei knocked on Jesnen's door...

[Enigmatic Immortal]

The rapping of knuckles on his inn door made the immortal shuffle in anger as he rolled to his side and ignored the knocking. He felt something trying to pierce into his eyes and with an angry snarl he grabbed his pillow and placed it over his head. Problem solved. He smiled as he stretched in the blankets, flexing each toe outwards as he nuzzled into his sheets smacking his lips.

The sound of the knocking got louder.

Irritated he lifted his hand outwards into the open world and groped for another pillow placing it over his head atop the other pillow. Problem solved. He didn’t mind the weight of two pillows on his head at all as he adjusted himself again getting ready to sleep in some more. As he felt himself drifting away something loud and obnoxious banged against the door.

Angrily he shot up, lifting his pillows and tossing them to the door. Something was kicking it, violently and the muffled cries of Stephanie became audible as his pillow fort had disappeared.

“-LAZY NO GOOD ROTTEN EXCUSE FOR A SACK OF FLESH!” Jensen took pride in her insults as he took stock of the situation rubbing the back of his mind. With a sinister thought he tip toed to the door, making sure he made no sounds as he waited. Sure enough the woman from the Apocalypse began to beat her shoulder against the door, and his mirth became two folded as he began to giggle like a child. As she was about beat her shoulder into the it wood again Jensen’s fingers nimbly opened the door and stuck his foot forwards.

Stephanie barreled forwards, her feet tripping up on Jensen’s and her body free fell to the floor where she hit the wooden baseline face first. Jensen leaned down to her resting on the balls of his feet as his hands rested on his knees.

“If you wanted in you should have just knocked,” Jensen said like she were a child. Adolph, despite his usually stern demeanor cracked out into a fit of laughter as Stephanie turned her head towards the immortal and gave him the look of death. Jensen turned to his belongings and walked over to them as he grabbed his satchel and his coat placing them on his shoulders lazily turning to his commander in chief, Sei Orlouge.

“Oh mightiest taskmaster and tyrant, must we disembark so soon in the morning?”

“It’s noon, you moron,” Stephanie growled as she stood back up. Jensen pushed past her as he entered the hallway. Looking around he saw nothing out of the ordinary and sighed sticking his hands in his pocket. Anita, who Jensen had learned was Sei’s daughter, gave him a dirty look, obviously unimpressed with his antics. He gave her a shrug and a wink as he turned to Sei.

With a goofy salute and a mocking bow he held his hand outwards to him. “What more needs to be done to protect your life, my liege?” Sei didn’t respond at first, his smile just cracking the surface. Jensen mentally frowned. Of all the people in this hallway Sei was the last man he wanted to entertain, still stewing over their battle in the Citadel where the mystic soundly trounced the immortal.

“We just need to get William,” Anita said. Jensen’s ears perked up. Now that was a man Jensen couldn’t complain about. A demon host with more anger than a racist convention. That man had fought Jensen twice and both times they fought they left the other broken; Jensen physically, and William mentally. This little fact wasn’t lost upon the Ixian lord who had ordered William to join up with Jensen in hopes they could be friends.

What a stupid word; Friend. That word had no concept to the immortal.

“I’ll go get him!” Jensen shouted, his grin widening into a manic look as he bolted down the hall far too quick for Adolph and Stephanie to grab him. With a sigh the two knights turned to Sei with an apologetic bow before running after him. Anita just looked up to her father and shook her head, still not seeing what he did in Jensen.

“WILLIAM!” Jensen shouted, his fists pounding on the door as he laughed like a jackass. "Time to get up, Willy boy!" He laughed long and hard as he pounded upon the door in a sporadic rhythm clearly intent to annoy whomever was inside.

[Revenant]

The land of Berevar was wild, primal, and harsh, all traits that the revenant William Arcus enjoyed. There was something about the untamed wilds that just riled up the passion in his blood. Of course normal people’s blood didn’t consume them from within when aroused, but that was another matter entirely. Still, as he had been spending so much time studying in the cavernous libraries of the mute mystic Sei Orlouge, William felt it was only fair to experience a little discomfort in return, or he had until Sei informed him that Jensen Ambrose would be coming along as well. Now, after the days he had been forced to spend with the tourette’s afflicted idiot, William was thinking about tearing the Sei’s throat out with his teeth.

It wasn’t that he hated Jensen. No, hate wasn’t a strong enough word to adequately convey the pure acidic loathing that stirred in his breast at merely the thought of the young Knight. Jensen took delight in being the biggest asshole that he possibly could, but seemed to take a special interest in his hobby wherever William was concerned. Already a walking volcano ready to erupt, William couldn’t help but get riled up each and every time that Jensen opened the sewer pipe he called a mouth.

But the worst part, the absolute worst part of it all, was the fact that Jensen refused to die.

William was a creature of destruction; a magically forged living weapon with no other purpose than to lay everything about him to waste. It had taken him uncounted years of wandering and struggling against his nature to give him even the slightest amount of control over his demonic rage. Still, despite everything he had been through, despite all of his efforts, Jensen was able to break him down with nothing more than a snarky laugh.

After the past few days, William wished for nothing more than to leave Jensen in a pool of the knight’s own viscera.

While William had promised Sei that he would try to be on his best behavior, he couldn’t help but to run a thumb over the edge of the iron hunting knife that he carried in his pack as he listened to the hysterical, erratic knocking at his door. It wasn’t a fighting knife by any means, but it was thick and sturdy enough to punch through a light suit of mail if enough force was applied behind it. Sighing, the revenant tucked his knife back into its sheath and pulled his tattered cloak over it.

Think of it as training, he echoed the mute’s words in his head, if you can keep your calm around Jensen then you can keep your calm around anyone.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” William growled, knowing that any acknowledgment from him would only elicit a faster, more erratic rapping at his door. He would have given just about anything at that point for a door that swung out into the corridor, one that he could shove into the smug grin that he knew was on the other side even if he couldn’t see it. Instead, he gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, and jerked the door inward with a single fluid motion.

“The day is wasting, guard,” William grunted, pushing past Jensen and heading to Sei’s quarters.

[Silence Sei]

As William walked out of the door, Sei, Anita, and the other knights were walking towards the revenant's form. Three of the four people were still beaming with smiles over Jensen's trick upon Stephanie. The fourth did not seem so pleased with the act. The mute's eyes went to Jensen and back to William before he nodded his morning greetings to the two of them.

"First things first, gentlemen. We still have to find us a guide." Jensen merely rolled his eyes while William gave a solemn nod. Anita pointed to Stephanie and Adolph with a nod. They had their orders for the day. The two knights nodded to the girl with just as much respect as they would have done to her father. She was heir to the Orlouge legacy, after all.

Sei made his way to the front table of the inn, passing several more doorways and walking down an oak staircase to do so. As he approached the front counter, he placed a bag of coins upon the desk to pay for everyone's rooms. "Thank you, sir!" the innkeeper spoke as Sei made his way out of the building, his posse following quickly behind him.

As soon as the group made its way out of the doorframe, Sei heard a soft voice. "Excuse me, son," the voice said behind the telepath, causing Sei to turn. The soothing tone belonged to the form of an older woman. She was clothed in what seemed to be tattered rags that reached down to the ground. Her face held some beautiful features in their paleness, including a set of blue eyes and a few well hidden but well placed wrinkles around her eyes. Her brown oily hair reached down to just below her shoulders, and her nose was almost unattractively small.

"I don't suppose you can spare some change for an old woman down on her luck?" the female asked. Sei's eyes went to Anita, who was already pulling out a small coin bag and a ham and cheese sandwich out of her small backpack. She gave the both to the older woman, who looked to the mute. "Bless you sir. I haven't seen such kindness in Berevar in a long time. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

"Yeah, you can get the fu---" Jensen's mouth was instantly shut by the hands of his comrades. Stephanie and Adolph looked to each other with a smile as if they had no idea the other was going for the mouth of the crude man. It seemed the Apocalypse Knights followed their orders to a T. At least, Stephanie and Adolph did.

"If you know your way around Berevar, as you seem to indicate, I would very much appreciate a guide." Sei spoke, causing the woman to look around for which member of the party had spoken. Realizing that the voice had come inside of her head, the woman smiled a bit, revealing a chipped canine on the right side of her teeth.

"Ah, a telepath, I see. Very well sir, old Lijom will help you find what you need. Nobody knows this place better than me." Anita looked to Sei with a smile, the mute returning the beaming expression to his daughter. "Nice to meet ya, Lijom, I'm Anita, and this is my Papa, Sei Orlouge."

Anita's attempt to garner attention to her father did not seem to impress the much older woman. Instead, Lijom simply looked to the rest of the team before returning her gaze to the Hero. "Do you have a destination in mind, or are you just here sight seeing?"

Sei's eyes went to William. He had not told the revenant of another reason why they had traveled this far. Yes, gaining notoriety in Berevar was important to Sei. However, such things were not as important as continuing to help William help himself. Sei's eyes focused back on their newly acquainted guide with a nod.

"Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help us find the Icehenge."

[Enigmatic Immortal]

“She smells,” Jensen blurted as soon as Adolph and Stephanie released their hands from his mouth. He watched Sei escort the new guide out the door with Anita behind him like a faithful dog and William marching behind her like a sycophant ass kisser.

“Of all the reasons to not have a guide,” Adolph mused as he walked towards the exit. “I would have figured you had something better than that to say.” Jensen shrugged to the warrior as lowered his hands into his pockets sighing deeply. He glanced over to Stephanie who was still giving him the stink eye.

Jensen just lowered his own stare, raising one eyebrow and motioning towards their guide. He put one hand out to her, softly rolling it in circles before her while he grinned. The female knight looked to Lijom and she began to bite her lip. Jensen then moved in on her, rubbing up against her shoulder with his as he nudged her to get her to speak.

“Well she does stink something fierce,” she mumbled as Jensen clapped his hands in triumph, laughing lightly. Adolph sighed very loudly as he turned to the two Jester class knights and gave them a stern look.

“We are Senior Knights of Apocalypse,” he said with pride and a deep tone. “You two should really act like one. And in case that’s to hard at least act your age.” he added. Jensen’s arm stretched out, holding Adolph by the shoulders as they exited into the world. He patted his fellow knight smiling like there wasn’t a care in the world. With a heavy sigh , something that was becoming the usual for the man, he spoke to the immortal.

“Whatever your about to say to me you better just drop. I don’t care what insults you have for me this morning.” Stephanie strolled up behind Adolph as Jensen held him still, giving him an affection smile waving off his words. As Jensen kept the knight occupied Stephanie took her sheathed dagger and poked it right up Adolph’s rear end.

The scream sounded much like a little girl’s.

“Pull the stick out of your ass ,” Stephanie said lightly as Jensen howled with laughter. “When it comes time to obey orders we will do so with the utmost respect and grace, right Jensen?” she turned to the immortal with sparkling eyes.

“Well,” Jensen said rubbing the back of his head still giggling as he watched Adolph rub his bottom. “Two out of three ain’t bad, right?” Stephanie sighed at the same time Adolph did, and despite the practical joke played on him earlier he joined them in laughing. Jensen looked up to his traveling group and cursed as he began to jog to catch up to Sei. The other two knights caught up to him and when the wind softly blew in his direction he snarled his face and coughed violently.

“What is that rancid-” before he could finish both knights slammed their hands over his mouth.

“Utmost respect and grace.” Stephanie repeated with a smile.

[Revenant]

William followed Sei, Anita, and their new guide silently and at a respectful distance. He was surprised to find that, for some reason, he felt drawn to the strange and ragged woman. She wasn’t the most attractive person he had ever met, far from it, and she smelled something awful, but it wasn’t her physical presence that he was drawn to. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was like the opposing natures of creation and destruction within him alternately reached out, each seeking to catch the woman’s attention.

What in the name of the Pyre is wrong with me? he mulled as he followed his leaders, absentmindedly kicking a thick mushroom that had somehow grown in the hard-packed earth outside the inn.

He was only half listening to Sei’s conversation with the intriguing Lijom, catching snippets of their conversation about something called the Icehenge. Born a simple woodsman in a nation so far from Berevar that most would never know its name, there was much about this land that William still didn’t know, even after the years he had spent wandering it. From what little he heard however, he understood that this Icehenge was a holy site, and from the glance Sei had given in his direction, he assumed that it was one the mute wanted him to visit.

How very like him, William grunted, listening to the crunch that his boots made in the street’s ever present hoarfrost. Sei’s predilection for helping William overcome his violent urges was well known to the revenant, as if the Hero of Radasanth had made it a personal mission to mentor the younger warrior. William wasn’t sure if this charity was driven by a true sense of goodwill or if there was something darker and more sinister in the mystic’s past that he was trying to atone for and the revenant wasn’t about to ask.

But even with Sei’s help William was becoming weary of it all. He had learned to control his demon by accepting it as a part of himself, but the constant struggle between his three souls, human, creation, and destruction, was beginning to wear him down. Hours of study in Sei’s library, all made that much more tedious by William’s general lack of formal education, had proven useless so far. Nothing, not even one scrap of information provided any clues to unlocking the rituals that Kal’Necroth had used to turn him into this living nightmare. William was beginning to despair of ever finding a way to overcome his affliction.

“But I’m not done yet,” William grumbled low enough that no one else would hear him and turned back to glare at the playful Knights diligently marching behind him. “Sei’s about the only friend I have left and I’ll be damned if I leave him with no one but these fuckups to watch his back.”

[Silence Sei]

Jensen had been so busy talking to his knight friends and poking Adolph in the butt, he never saw the snowball coming. Stephanie and Adolph had moved their hands just in time to watch the white slush slam smack dab into the man's face, dripping down his features. Anita grinned with her back to the three, tossing another snowball up and down.

Lijom and Sei had been talking for a bit as she began to lead them out of the town. Berevar was essentially a winter wasteland designed for only the strongest to survive. It would be rather easy for one to get lost in the vast whiteness of snow if they traversed too far out of town. Anita had factored this in, and handed their guide several small red flags from her backpack. Lijom made good use of them, placing a flag every twenty feet or so as they continued through the frozen tundra.

Soon, the town they had been occupying was completely out of sight. Every five minutes or so, Jensen would encounter another snowball from his mysterious attacker. It didn't help that Anita had brought Stephanie in on the game, so when Jensen would look towards Anita, Stephanie would pelt him with another snowball. The girl knew she was probably pissing the immortal off, but she didn't care.

"Papa, can I ask you something?" Anita asked as a gap in Sei's conversation with Lijom opened. "It's about Jensen and William. Why do you have so much faith in them? I mean, Jensen obviously thinks you're some sort of self-righteous jerk and from what I hear, William is a demon of some sort." Lijom looked to the father and daughter, that same unique smile forming across her lips.

"Well, little lady, it seems like your father believes in second chances a whole lot. I'd wager to say that he himself was thought of as irredeemable at one point only to prove people wrong, am I right?" Sei's eyes widened at the dead on analysis. Apparently there was more to Lijom than met the eye. The mute nodded to confirm all that she had just said.

"Are we there yet?!" Jensen asked for the umpteenth time during the twenty minutes they had been gone. Lijom turned to the immortal and walked over to him. She quickly tapped his shoulder once before returning to Sei. "Had a loose thread on your clothing there, m'boy," she said.

"I ribbit not!" Jensen said, causing everyone’s heads to turn. The group pondered if everyone had just heard what they thought they did. At the same time, everyone shook their head in a 'nah' kind of way before continuing to follow Lijom. "It's not much farther, we'll get to the Icehenge as soon as we get past the Berevar Bears."

Wait a second....Berevar Bears?!

[Enigmatic Immortal]

The frost of the day continued on and Jensen began regretting not bringing the heavy winter gear that Sei not only insisted upon, but ordered everyone to bring. He realized that sometimes, just sometimes it wasn’t worth pissing off the man if he froze in the process. Not that Sei would have even remotely cared. Nothing the immortal did seemed to upset him.

Jensen was on edge, checking over his shoulder every few steps to see if a snowball would come his way. He was getting irritated with this game and he didn’t want to play anymore as he angrily thought of who the hell was doing it. Sei was too good to make snowballs himself, Jensen felt positive of that because gods forbid that asshole do something besides sound condescending and be a jackass. At least that’s what Jensen thought he did.

William wouldn’t bother to make a snowball. It’s simplicity far outreached anything his idiotic brain could conceive. All the demon host was capable of was being pointed in the direction of a wall and given the order to smash. No, a snowball didn’t seem in his realm of abilities. He eyed Adolph carefully, wondering if the usual stoic knight was the source, but he couldn’t make a snowball if his life depended on it. That would require him to do something besides look like a fool with a sword.

Jensen sighed deeply and looked to Anita. As his eyes narrowed in suspicion she gave him an aggressive shrug, a look of curiosity as she mouthed the words ‘What do you want?’ He kept his gaze upon her and his head exploded as a flash of white passed his vision. A snowball had hit him again. He turned to Stephanie, who was sharpening a knife and looking to the road ahead of her, a whistle on her lips of a song she enjoyed mumbling constantly.

Another snowball hit him in the back and he twirled this time on the guide as his fingers pointed to her in accusation. Before he could speak a word Stephanie and Adolph charged him, tackling his body into the snow as he whimpered in pain and felt the slushy ground chill his bones. Their hands covered his mouth and the party gave the trio a confused look. Sei was the first to walk on, continuing his conversation with Lijom as they walked onwards. Anita smirked before keeping in pace with her father. William didn’t say a word, didn’t bat an eye or elude he cared. He just walked onwards keeping a respectful distance from Sei’s side in the event the mystic should need him.

“It’s her damn-ibbit!” he cursed. Jensen shook his head quickly as Adolph and Stephanie gave each other a confused look. Jensen looked to them both silently asking them if they thought they heard what he said. After a brief second all three shrugged. No it was insane to think Jensen was making frog noises. Besides, if he really was the others would just think it was his new game to annoy the hell out of them.

The chill wind blew a breeze across everyone’s skin and Stephanie fixed her winter gear to be a little tighter, tying up her leather armor and rubbing her shoulders. Adolph did likewise, buttoning up his heavy coat and wrapping the waist belt around him tying it off in a pretty bow. Jensen snorted as he pointed to the jacket.

“Where di-ibbit you learn that, Suzy-homemaker?” Jensen asked, mentally wincing. Adolph didn’t seem to notice these strange frog like noises coming from the immortal as he pushed past him.

“It’s standard military procedure you idiot,” Adolph turned to Stephanie and offered her a canteen full of water. She grasped it taking a swig looking to Jensen and tossing him the container. The knight grabbed it with ease as he took his share before corking it. Adolph continued as he lifted his hand up in the universal sign for ‘toss it here.’ “You don’t want to have a complex knot in your coat if you plan to be attacked. A simple bow like this allows me to pull it and drop the coat in a simple motion.”

Jensen held the canteen walking up to him, waiting until he was within a few feet of his fellow warrior. When he was he tossed the canteen up high in the air. Adolph sighed as he looked up and Jensen ran past him in a sprint. “What the-” Adolph muttered watching the immortal make a straight line for the guide, a wild grin on his face. “STEPH!” he shouted. The woman nodded running forward and slamming her body into the immortals as they both fell to the ground.

“Ah come on! Just one little insult!”

“No!” She breathed heavily, her eyes piercing into his soul willing him to shut his mouth.

“Just about her hair! A little ja-bbit at her hair!” Jensen whined. Stephanie lifted one of her knives up to his eye and placed the tip gently on the soft skin of the eyelid.

“One quip, one tiny little joke towards our guide and I’ll gut out your eye.” She gave him a warning look as she pressed the tip a little closer.

“Okay, okay, jeeze-ibbit!” Stephanie rolled her eyes.

“And while your at it, knock off the frog routine. A little elementary for your caliber don’t you think?” she teased picking him by his coat. Jensen felt his teeth chatter as he shrugged to her in confusion, not knowing what she was talking about. Stephanie noticed he was quivering from the frost and knowing the immortal had died twice from being frozen to death felt a twinge of motherly instincts to care for him. She rolled her eyes again as she bent her backpack over and pulled out a sweater punching it into his chest making him laugh as he put it on.

“Aw, you’re such a sweeti-bbit!” Jensen joked. Stephanie stormed off from him catching up with the group. He paused in his steps looking down upon his chest as he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Slowly he turned his gaze to Lijom who was laughing at a joke Sei and Anita told to her, her eyes darting only to him for a fleeting second, but in that moment a flash of mischievous intent danced upon her smile.

I hope these bears eat her alive, Jensen thought miserably as he moved after them. Ribbit.

[Revenant]

Berevar Bears? William pondered, wondering exactly how creatures as large and voracious as bears could survive in Berevar’s white wilderness.At least, he had been wondering about the Berevar Bears until Anita sent another packed globe of snow hurtling at Jensen. It wasn’t that the girls’ playful teasing of their immortal companion wasn’t appreciated by William. The revenant enjoyed anything that annoyed and frustrated the cocky young Knight. He would have enjoyed it even more if the two of them had been throwing something sharper and more knife-shaped at the man, but there was a time and a place for games and a time and place for being serious.

Right now, trudging through the frost of frozen Berevar with the threat of hostile beasts on the horizon, was one of the latter.

May every God of every nation damn me for what I am about to do, William grumbled, slowing his pace to match that of the trailing Knights of the Apocalypse. Stephanie and Adolph eyed him with curious distrust, something William himself would have done in their position, and William could only thank his luck that Jensen was too cold-numbed to give him much thought. On any other day, at any other time, William would have scoffed at the idea of what he was about to put himself through for the sake of what was quite possibly the largest object of his scorn on the face of Althanas. But as there was a correct time and place for seriousness, there was a time and place for putting aside one’s pride.

Right now, trudging through the frost of frozen Berevar with the threat of hostile beasts looming on the horizon, was not a time for pride.

“Anita, Stephanie,” William spoke in his thick, gravelly voice, “don’t you think you’re little game has made Jensen miserable enough for one day?” The incredulous looks that he got from everyone in the group didn’t bring him any pleasure, in fact it only seemed to made him second guess his actions that much more. And if just sticking up for Jensen wasn’t enough to cause jaws to drop, William’s next action certainly was.

There was no flourish in William’s actions, no dramatic gesture to drawn attention to what he was doing. There was merely the slightest tug at his belt and a shrug which sent the bulk of his traveling cloak over his shoulders, exposing his chest to the windy, biting cold. Ignoring the reactions of his companions, William then reached out to the mental barriers that he used to hold the flood waters of his demonic power at bay and released them. He didn’t release enough power to enact his full transformation, but the molten fury that he did release surrounded him with an aura of heat that would be more than enough to warm the freezing immortal. It was also enough to spend black veins of pain lancing through his flesh, brining all the pain that accompanied such things.

“By the Thayne I hate the cold,” William grumbled in a low voice, as if that were all the reason that he needed for what he did. He ignored the disbelieving looks that he got from the rest of the group, pretending he hadn’t done it intentionally. He ignored the look from Sei that might or might not have been satisfaction, as one of Sei’s sole reasons for brining both William and Jensen was to have them learn to work together.

But surprisingly, the one look that he couldn’t ignore was the look from the group’s guide, Lijom, which was a piercing look of approval.

[Silence Sei]

"Good work, Anita," Sei sent the message solely to his daughter. The girl winked her reply towards Sei, not actually trying to help her father out. In Anita's mind, William Arcus had become a sourpuss and a killjoy. The teenager must have imagined that Stephanie was thinking the same thing. Jensen would get Stephanie back later, but Anita did not want her to be 'gotten'.

"By the way, Jensen," Anita commented, "you are not to take your frustration out on Stephanie for our fun. That's an order." Anita giggled as she trailed behind the leaders of the pack. Each step was sinking the group deeper and deeper into the snowy tundra that awaited them. Slowly but surely, their target began to come into their vision.

The large blocks of ice were about two miles off from their location. Sei could make out the circular formation that the frozen stones had taken. It was obvious that the group was getting closer and closer to the area known as the Icehenge. Sei turned his head to the group with a smile, reassuring them that they would be there in a matter of moments.

"Something I wanted to ask you, Sei," Lijom said with a wry little grin. "You're going to put someone through the trial of the Icehenge, that much is obvious. However, a fine fella such as yourself seems to already have a good introspective look at yourself. After all, you're kind enough to help an old bag like me with my troubles. Most of the others don't seem like they need such an ability either. What made you travel this far for something you don't require?"

Sei looked back to his group before locking eyes with his host once more. "Teamwork. My team sorely needs to know how to work together for a common goal. The brooding man, his name is William, and he's been haunted by his past demons for too long. I've seen in his soul, tried to tell him he was a good man, but he doesn't truly believe me yet. I'm going to put him through the trial of the Icehenge to make him see for himself what he truly is."

"You know, he won't have the demon possessing him in that circle. It'll just be him and the doppelganger." Sei froze in his tracks at the guides words. Now it was the telepath's time to ask questions. Almost as if she had read his mind, Lijom replied to his thoughts. "Believe it or not, I used to be a pretty proficient magician back in my day. Detecting dark aura is like a child identifying ice cream to me."

A pretty lame comparison Sei thought, considering we're in a frozen wasteland.

As the group got within a mile of their destination, Anita tripped over something. The girl turned around in the cold ground to try and find the lump that caused her fall. Slowly, a large blob of white rose from the tundra. Two slits slowly opened up, revealing glowing red eyes. The thing shook` furiously, remaining quite camouflaged in the snow. It was hard to determine the size or girth of the beast.

A loud roar revealed several rows of white canines in the blackness that was its mouth. Anita kicked her way to her father's legs as Sei turned to see the beast. Slowly, several more blobs rose from the ground. Red eyes glowed from around the group. There were roughly twelve of the creatures, at least that's what Sei could deduce from the pairs of eyes.

This was going to be a hard fight. Completely at the mercy of a nigh invisible opponent. "Jensen, I want you to get William, Anita, and Lijom to the Icehenge. The rest of us will keep the Berevar Bears at bay." Lijom opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, but was cut off by another epic roar.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen looked to the sky in an exaggerated fashion as warmth took hold of his bones like a jealous lover. He blinked to the heavens and found no sense of an ill omen. He turned to William and gave him a once over as his eyes moved up and down and he concluded that the man had to have lost his mind in the cold. Offering him his warmth…

That would imply he cared.

Jensen gave him a scrutinizing eye as he moved towards the edge of the group, but each time he stood to far away from the warmth his blood chilled more and more. He looked down upon his hands, half expecting to see webbed digits, but nothing out of the ordinary. He shook his head and looked back to Lijom who was in a discussion with Sei. Anita had spoken, a few words about nothing he planned on paying attention to. Stephanie lifted a finger to the revenant, walking past him with a look of annoyance as she hurried to match speed with Anita. Adolph was the only man who didn’t seem to mind that William stood up to Jensen, offering his canteen in a show of friendship. William had ignored it with a gruff shake of his head as he patted his own and walked away.

Before he could make heads or tails of the situation he tripped flat onto his face as he fell inside the snow and was half buried. A roar that would put any blood thirsty warrior to shame erupted into the still air, trees shaking off snow drift from it’s mighty bellow.

Jensen felt his body get shoved aside as another Berevian bear stood up and awoke from it’s peaceful slumber. Jensen turned to see the beast in all its glory; snow white fur that masked it well against the surroundings, red eyes so deep in color it ate away at the soul with terror, and fangs sharp enough to tear bone in half.

Sei gave out battle orders and Jensen froze, feeling his heart race in his chest as the bear came for him with snapping jaws, saliva dripping in the air as it came in to eat his face off. Before it had n opportunity a knife impaled its left eye, Stephanie and Adolph running forward as the claymore of the heavy set warrior impaled the screaming beast in chest knocking the bear over. It clawed at him as he pulled his blade out, jumping back to cover the immortal.

“Get moving idiot!” Stephanie called to him as she pulled up another throwing knife and letting it loose at another bear that attempted to flank Adolph. Jensen nodded once as he leapt to his feet and trudged forwards, running as fast as he could through the snow that continued to rise up past his knees. He looped his arm around Anita and Lijom, his face looking for the first time serious as he pushed them onwards.

“Papa!” Anita called out.

“Your faggot fairy father can take care of himself, ribbit,” Jensen said, a poor attempt to console her as he looped his arm around her waist and pushed her forwards. William was short in pursuit of him, his jacket whipping behind him as he ran. Anita nodded once and grew her own strength to run, but the snow held her back as it weighed her down. Several bears were in pursuit, more awakening as they must have stumbled upon the packs home.

William bent over and picked her up, letting her rest on his shoulders as the three ran, Lijom leading the way as they moved.

“Will-ibbit, how many behind you?” Jensen called back. William grunted in response and Jensen rolled his eyes slowing himself slipping his fingers into two of his throwing knives.

“LOT’S!” Anita answered for him, most likely echoing the demon hosts thoughts. Jensen turned as William passed him, laughing with glee as two of his weapons flew outwards to hold the beasts at bay. What in gods name did he think he would accomplish was beyond even his immortal thoughts, for the knives penetrated their flesh and bothered them no more than bee sting.

“Uh,” Jensen mumbled as he turned around and sprinted. William had lowered the girl back to her feet as she moved in the path that Lijom made, the snow no longer holding the heir to the Orlouge legacy back. Jensen looked to see the bear was gaining, quickly followed by several pack mates. Jensen caught up to William, who had glanced to the immortal with a distrustful sneer.

“Yeah, ribbit, I think you got pretty eyes too,” Jensen sassed as he moved closer to the warmth the revenant gave off. “I got an idea-ibbit, I want you to ribbit,” Jensen was finding the ability to speak harder and harder. The immortal looked back to Lijom, who gave him a silent look, could it have been apology or sneer, who knew, but Jensen didn’t like it either way.

William slapped him lightly across the shoulder to keep his attention focused and the knight turned to him.

“Ribbit, Rib bib bib ibbit!” Jensen said, revealing his master plan. William was now confused as well as the immortal sighed heavily pointing one finger at the bears and the other at William. Then when he was sure he got his point across he pointed to icehenge. Then after that gesture he pointed to the two women and to himself. William nodded as he looked back at the bears over his shoulder.

We are so fucked, Jensen thought miserably as he jumped over a log, noticing he had far greater dexterity than before. He landed leaps father ahead than he should have and he grinned coming up with a plan.

Looking to the girls and to the trees above he jumped towards them to enact his plan.

[Revenant]

“Up to our asses in it,” William snarled watching Jensen’s odd, jumping departure. While William loathed the man, Jensen had far more experience with tactical planning that the revenant, whose style of fighting was more of the ‘direct charge’ philosophy. The Knight’s plan seemed solid, but it hinged on William drawing all of the hungry bears’ attention down onto his own shoulder.

Well fuck it all if it isn’t a good day to get eaten, William chuckled darkly, pouring speed into his legs.

Unfortunately, for as hard as the revenant pushed, the thick drifts of snow pushed back just s hard. Lijom had led them down a relatively mundane trail, but in their blind flight from the bears’ ambush site, William and the others had stumbled into some of the heavier snow. Each step in the thick, crunching ice was like fighting through a crowd of upraised arms all clawing and grasping at him. It was inevitable, given the circumstances, that one of the high banks caught William as he stumbled, causing the revenant to sink to his knees in the ice.

Though he was caught, William’s sprint and Jensen’s knives had given him a few extra moments before the bears caught up to him and his more pressing concern was Anita’s cry for help. Stealing a quick glance while he struggled to free himself, William saw that roughly half of the of the dozen pursuing bears were breaking pursuit off of him and turning towards Anita and Lijom.

Jensen, despite his momentary civil attitude, was still acting like a fool and would never reach the girls with the jumping leaps that he was taking. Sei and the other Knights of the Apocalypse were nowhere to be seen, vanished amid the surging tide of living white, though William had no doubts that the mute mystic could handle both his and their safety. It seemed that Anita and Lijom only had him to help them out.

“Over here you frozen bastards!” William, roaring, pushed himself back to his feet. “Come and have something nice and warm to eat.” William, seeing no other option, removed the remaining willpower holding back his demonic half.

Neither Anita nor the Knight of the Apocalypse, save Jensen, had seen William’s demon form, and William had hoped to be able to keep his horrid transformation from their eyes. And then there was the matter of Lijom. William wasn’t certain how his demonic revelation would affect the old guide, but he hoped that it wouldn’t send her fleeing for the hills and leave them stranded. But it was a bridge they would have to cross when they got to it, and William needed his demonic strength to get them there in the first place.

Already having his molten power so close to the surface by using his heat to warm Jensen, William’s transformation took him like a hawk taking a dove. Within a handful of heartbeats William’s entire body was swollen with demonic fury and the surrounding air was warm and filled with the smell of charred meat. The bears that had broken off to pursue the girls shifted their charge back towards their original, suddenly more appealing, prey. The bears that had not faltered redoubled their efforts pouring on their speed and closing the distance at an alarming rate.

“That’s right, come have a taste,” William snarled gleefully through his charred lips, knowing that, for the moment at least, the girls and Jensen were safe. Snow melted to slush around the revenant’s blistering heat and it was child’s play for William’s increased strength to pull him free from the resulting mire. Finding himself back on solid ground, William once more began the rapid pace that would take him the last mile to the Icehenge, though what he was going to do with a dozen bears when he got there was anyone’s guess.

[Silence Sei]

Sure to Sei's thoughts, the majority of the bears went after the weaker members of the group. Anita and Lijom both were not capable of handling such beasts, and Jensen appeared to be too distracted trying to save the girls and himself to put up a fight. That left about six bears for Sei, Adolph, and Stephanie. Sei grinned a bit to his Ixian knights. "I hope you're both okay with two for each of us."

Stephanie and Adolph nodded as they drew their weapons. Sei took out his own Gemini Blades as he looked to the beasts circling the group. "Back-to-back formation. Once they get close enough, attack." The knights and the mute began to take several steps behind themselves, until all three were pushing against one another. The bears began to close in as the three strategically retreated into each other.

The first bear charged Sei with its head tucked down. Apparently the beast was trying to bludgeon the mute with its skull. Sei leapt into the air with a front flip. He landed upon the bear’s neck and placed his blades to the creature’s throat. Sei could feel the bucking of the animal against his buttocks, but he could not find anything vital. The mute held his arms around the neck of the creature steady, and it quickly realized it was no match for the telepath.

Another bear leaped towards the mute from behind. Sei heard the roar of the vicious beast as it glided through the air, and jerked his arms to the side. This caused his mouth to turn towards its brethren. Sei followed up by jerking upwards to put the bear on its hind legs. The two colossal animals slammed into one another, knocking Sei into the snow. The mute carefully placed his large arm cloth over his form in order to camouflage himself from the danger. Placing his swords into the snow, Sei withdrew a single chakram.

As the toppled over beasts climbed back to their feet, they began to search for the man that humiliated them. One of them let out another massive roar that gave Sei the opportunity he needed. He threw the chakram with all of his might towards the mouth of the beast. The bladed ring bounced off of the tooth of the first bear and found itself a home in the skull of the second.

Sei threw his cloth off and picked his Gemini Blades up once more. He charged the first bear with all of his might. As the second bear began to fall, the first stood on its own hind legs, swiping a massive paw at the telepath. The blow struck true to the mute's head, and sent him rolling back into the snow.

Sei lifted his head up as the bear began its charge once more. His partner was still spilling crimson rubies upon the majestic white snow. Sei scrambled to his feet as he got ready for the charge of the second beast. He didn't have time to notice the blue blood seeping out of the side of his own head. Distracting these animals was much more important to him.

Sei prepared for the next attack as he hoped his allies were having an easier time.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen’s feet moved swiftly in the air, adding to the length of his jump. He couldn’t describe this feeling, instead letting out a rather wild laugh in the air. Well, he thought it was a laugh, but it sounded more like a half laugh, half frog cry.

William had called to the bears, and a large portion of them answered his call as they gave chase to the demon. Five of the bears veered towards Jensen and the girls and made quick haste to catch up. Within seconds they would be feasting upon their flesh if Jensen didn’t think of something. He listened to the sounds of battle, hearing Adolph shout like a barbarian and Stephanie echo her own high pitch laughter. He listened for Sei and strained to catch some words from the mystic.

When he landed he turned his head to the side in thought, remembering the man was a mute. He moved up to the girls waving his hands towards them and the trees.

“RIBBIT! RIBBIT RIB BIB BIBIT! BIBBIT! BIBBIT RIB RIB!” Jensen shouted, giving them clear detailed instructions. Anita screamed at him, not a bellow of terror, but of rage as she slapped him full across the mouth.

“Would you please take this situation a little more seriously?” she roared. Jensen mentally sighed as he sagged his shoulders, grabbing Anita and holding her to him as he looked up at the trees and prepared to jump. Just as he bent low Anita’s fist hammered right down upon the immortal's neck and he crumbled to the floor.

“Unhand me!” She backed away towards Lijom, looking up at the bears that were going to be upon them any moment. “Get up and fight those bears! For the love of the gods, do your job, Jensen!” Soon her words began to come out like a nitpicking house wife, telling him what to do, that his form was poor, and how Sei would ever trust someone so incompetent as Jensen was beyond her mind.

Jensen was not having a good day.

The Knight stood against the bears, preparing for their assault as he pulled his punch knife out, holding a throwing knife in a reverse grip. The first beast came and stood upon its hind legs in challenge, crying out a guttural war cry to him. For it’s efforts Jensen rotated his throwing knife and threw the dagger into it’s exposed throat. The beast took two steps back and fell over, thrashing about as blood dripped upon the white snow in a tapestry of art, the warm crimson liquid melting the white slush.

The next two bears to arrive tucked their heads down and bull charged. Jensen slipped his finger into another cold metal hole of his throwing glaive and made a tough decision as to which bear would get a punch knife, and which would get a glaive in the eye. Choosing the right side he tossed the glaive, the triangular throwing weapon digging along the beasts nose and up until it clipped its eye and stopped, dangling from its ear like a piece of jewelry. It hollered out in pain as it thrashed into the snow in feeble attempts to escape its pain.

He jumped to the left and upon the side of the beast, its girth easily shaking him off as he bounced in the snow away from it. His goal was accomplished, however, as the bear slid in the snow to turn around, coming back to feast upon Jensen. The immortal crouched low and jumped forwards, his extra agility adding to his momentum as he landed with arms clasping around the mouth of the beast. What ensued involved a wild, frantically groaning mountain bear and a rodeo Jensen holding on for dear life.

“RIB~BBB~IT~TTT!” Jensen screamed, his eyes shut tight as he was tossed back and forth, shaking violently around as the beast tried to buck him off.

Lijom pointed towards a tree, and Anita and her made haste as the last two bears came for them. The daughter of Sei lifted the old crone up, and in turn she pulled the child up as they climbed into the tree, higher and higher to escape the wrath of the bears that slammed into their tree. The girls held on tight while they watched Jensen scream.

“I can’t believe he would still stick to this frog game, even in the heat of battle. I’ll have to talk to Papa about his behavior…” Anita sassed. Lijom only let out a soft smile, closing her eyes tightly as the tree shook violently again, drifts of snow falling on their backs.

[Revenant]

William no longer worried about Sei or the Knights of the Apocalypse. He no longer cared about Anita or Lijom the guide and whether or not they were still alive. Even all hatred for Jensen was lost to the revenant. What he did have on his mind was the rapidly approaching frozen pillars of the Icehenge and the even more rapidly approaching bears.

Almost … there, his mind panted, so starved for oxygen from his mile long sprint that it had trouble forming coherent sentences. The inhuman strength that his demonic form provided allowed the revenant to push faster and harder than his human form ever would, the only thing that was keeping him from becoming bear-chow at the moment. They were close behind him, so close that he could almost feel the slavering jaws and the hot, fetid breath on the back of his neck.

Icehenge was close as well, massive blocks of ice-covered stone that shone like mirrors in the light of the mid-day sun. William had no idea who had built the massive structure or why, nor did he know why he was leading the bears into the open circle. It was an open structure with a wide killing field, but he trusted that Sei and Jensen knew something about the structure that he didn’t.

Trusting Jensen? He would have laughed at the absurdity if the situation hadn’t been so dire.

The area around Icehenge was flat and smooth, almost as if the approach to the ice blocks had been cleared by hand. William knew that he would have better traction and speed once he got to the cleared area, but first there was another problem that he would have to deal with. A river, thin and shallow, cut around the clearing, separating the snow covered wilderness from the well-manicured field beyond. Flowing water was definitely out of place in the Berevar wastes, confirming William’s suspicions that there was more to Icehenge than met the eye. But despite whatever supernatural properties kept the water free and flowing, the shallow moat would be a frozen torture to cross.

But William was no mere beast to be thwarted by the pain of burning ice and, never slowing in the least, the revenant dove headfirst into the river just ahead of his pursuers. The shock of the sub-frozen water hit William like a brick, forcing the air from his blistered lungs and only the incredible heat of his demonic form kept him from going completely numb. Still, veins of ice flooded his body, tearing away the heat of his demonic form and sapping the power that flowed with it.

The bears behind William, perhaps being smarter than the charred revenant, came to a halt at the water’s edge. There were nearly a dozen of them, savage brutal creatures that milled about hesitantly, waiting for one of the others to take charge. The beasts seemed daunted, but the bears were hungry and freezing water wouldn’t be enough to throw them off the chase. Soon enough one bear took charge, plunging forward, followed shortly thereafter by a second and then the rest of them. But the bears’ hesitance had given William the time he needed to gain the other side of the river.

And by the time the first bear set foot on the opposite shore, William had entered the Icehenge.

[Silence Sei]

The bear was so close, Sei could feel its hot breath on his form. The hairs of the beast were quite literally brushing against the mute's own arm hair. Sei looked at the form of his foe dead on as he noticed that the creature was now missing a head. Blood spewed from the neck of the creature and onto the youngest Orlouge's body. Sei's eyes shifted downward towards the head of the animal now at his feet.

Behind the decapitated animal was a large Claymore. Sei followed the tip of the weapon to find Adolph at its hilt. Apparently the Apocalypse Knight had fared well against his bestial adversaries and was now dispatching Sei's. The mute nodded his thanks to his guard as he looked for Stephanie.

The girl had managed to slay one bear, several knives sticking out of the beast like acupuncture needles. The warrior herself was on the ground, pinned by the massive animal. The bear kept trying to bite Stephanie, would try to slash at the beast with his half-ring blade. Neither attack seemed to find its mark. Sei shifted his eyes to Adolph and back to Stephanie. The massive warrior nodded and picked up his weapon, rushing towards the girl.

Sei looked back to the body of the beast and dropped to his knees. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands together in a prayer. He was merely defending himself, nothing more. The beasts were worthy foes to be keeping everybody on their toes. Sei could not blame the animals for defending their home, and attacking intruders. It was for these reasons that Sei said a prayer for his downed victims. Sei stood up without realizing the mushrooms that began to sprout around the corpse.

Sei turned as Adolph had managed to impale Stephanie's bear with his large sword. As he pulled the sword out, Sei approached them. Sei kneeled down once more and said a prayer for the beasts here as well. Stephanie rose to her feet, attempting to salvage her dignity, and looked to her employer. "Why are you doing that? They tried to kill us!"

"Stephanie. It's his business." Adolph knew where Sei was coming from. The gargantuan man placed a hand on Sei's shoulder. Sei opened his eyes and rose up, looking off to where Jensen and the others had went to. Thinking of his daughter and the innocent guide now, Sei took off running without a second thought to the blood streaming down his head. His two guards followed suit, lacking behind a bit as they did not seem to have the stamina from going to battle to battle as the Hero of Radasanth did.

As the trio began to close in on Jensen, Sei began to think about his wound.

Was Jensen Ambrose's skin green?

[Enigmatic Immortal]

“RIBBIT!” Jensen cried out as he was flung high in the air, unable to hold on anymore as he tumbled to the ground with Anita’s consistent yapping at his ability to not do anything right. What he screamed about however wasn’t the plunge, but rather the mutations his body was going through. He was now green, and his hands seemed to smaller than the last time he checked. His modified trench coat was blazing in the wind, his arms no longer fitting snug within it’s tight grip and the sweater giving him more room to work with as he seemed to lose twenty pounds.

He hit the slushy snow with a solid whoosh sound, a crunching noise filled the air as the bears came down upon him, sniffing the air for his scent to finish off the immortal. They stuck their noses in the ground, grunting as they pushed the drift aside and pawed areas of thick snow to pat it down. Their red eyes kept glancing back and forth, their ears twitching to find him.

At last one had found the fallen warrior, pouncing into the snow over his body and swiping furiously as teeth crunched down upon cloth, tearing it limb from limb. The sweater was the first to go, a leaf on the wind as it dropped to ground lifelessly. His right boot was torn up into the sky, resting in a tree not far from the current location. Furiously it bellowed at the clothing, tearing it apart while it’s partner stood watch, growling at the oncoming trio of warriors.

A throwing knife flew outwards, catching the offending bear on the nose and sending a glittering crimson spray out as the beast bellowed in rage, calling back one of the bears from Anita’s tree as Lijom angrily shooed them away with her stinking ragged cloth.

The two knights breathed deep as they moved inwards, sprinting past Sei so he could get to the tree and protect his guide and most important treasure, Anita. Stephanie cursed as she pulled out the last of her throwing knives, holding it ready as her punch ring was held to her waist in a ready uppercut. Adolph’s claymore was held in an over shoulder grip, eyes searching for tactical advantages as they flanked the bears surrounding Jensen’s body.

The female jester took her knife and aimed well, piercing the beast in the eye and screaming as she ran forward, punch ring thrust forward as the spikes gutted the beasts neck area, causing it’s agonizing guttural roar to sputter out and cease, blood foaming outwards on the ground like bile as the beast fell limp, shallowly breathing in wheezing torment.

Adolph swung down hard, his weapon making a swish sound through the air as the bear pulled back, the weapon falling into the snow harmlessly. Moving swiftly, far swifter than the senior knight could pull back the beasts paw swiped forward in a powerful swipe, knocking the steel weapon out towards Stephanie who was hit in the shoulder hilt first dropping her to the ground as she cried out in shock and pain.

The bear moved in an earth quacking trot, knocking the knight over onto his back as he skidded in the snow creating a tiny grave as he grunted, the air passing out his lips from the creatures immense girth. He opened his eyes just in time to lift his hands out push on the lower jaw of the bear, shunting it’s mouth ajar as it howled to taste his flesh.

Out of the confusion of the battle Jensen jumped upwards, his body flying through the air as he looked to the offenders with blood crazed eyes. His tongue was held out into the air, as if laughing wildly as he gained air once thought impossible to a human. Webbed fingers and feet spread in a half star shape as he dove forwards to rescue Adolph, and he landed upon the back of the bear beating his fists upon it’s back.

Of course, what the hell a frog could do to a bear was beyond him, the immortal completely transformed into a tiny Salvarian Tree Frog.

“Rib,” he whined.

[Revenant]

Nothing in William’s life had ever left as solemn an impression on him as the Icehenge. The revenant was no mason, and had no knowledge of the specific and unique nature of the piled blocks of stone that made up the massive complex, but he was nevertheless struck speechless by the shimmering, mirror-like finish of ice that covered every square inch on them. The light of the Berevar sun, pure and brilliant, reflected back and forth between the pillars, surrounding William with a soft, warm glow that made him forget the hungry ice bears fording the stream behind him, made him forget the Sei Orlouge and Jensen Ambrose, and even made him forget the boiling rage that flowed through his veins. Everything in William’s world faded into the light of Icehenge.

An ice bear roared behind him, the first of the creatures to successfully cross the icy stream. The sound was frustrated and hungry and it did not dissipate when it reached the Icehenge but caught on the edges of the frozen pillars and rebounded, echoing back and forth between the pillars until a whole chorus of roars howled around the revenant in unchecked chaos. It was there, amid the bright light and the howling shrieks that William first saw him own charred form staring back at him.

Strangely, the first thought that managed to emerge from the revenant’s mind fog was a feeling of intense cold. It was an odd sensation, one that was completely foreign to the molten nature of William’s demonic form. It took a lot to cool the magma that flowed through his veins. Even the liquid ice temperature of the stream he had plunged through had only managed to cool him slightly, and even then it had only cooled him while he remained submerged below it. But standing there, dwarfed by Icehenge’s looming pillars, William felt a cold that cut right through his demonic heat.

“What is this place?” he whispered, looking around the glassy structure in awe.

Unable to maintain the power of his demonic transformation against Icehenge’s sapping cold, William’s humanity slowly reasserted itself. William watched his reflection, wanting to see his own face emerge from behind the demon’s glaring visage, but was surprised when, instead of turning human, the demonic reflection took on a life of its own. “What the hell,” William gasped, watching with wide eyes as the charred reflection flexed its claws and stepped forward, breaking free of the pillar’s icy surface.

It was then, watching the revenant march across the Icehenge, that William understood why Sei wanted to bring him here. A man could, quite literally, face his demons in this ancient, frozen place. Instinctively, William understood that this apparition existed only to test him, and it was either face the demonic creature or flee into the waiting jaws of the ice bears. Though he had never wanted to become a living weapon, William had accepted that it was his fate, and there would be no running from it. But as he willed his demonic power to resurface, William found that Icehenge’s cold held it firmly in an icy, restraining grip.

More roaring told William that the last of the ice bears had made it across the stream and were rapidly approaching behind him. In front of him the demonic mirror steadily approached on the treaded heels of death. Around him, the echoing sound of chaos resolved into shrill laughter.

“Fucking Sei,” William snarled.

[Silence Sei]

Jensen was a frog.

They were fighting Berevar bears. The bears were perfectly camouflaged and had outnumbered the group. At least two of the members of the troupe were useless. William was supposed to get to the Icehenge no matter what.

And Jensen was a frog.

Sei had watched the bravery of the amphibian as he jumped upon the back of one of the beasts. As the bear roared with all of his might, Jensen somehow kept a hold of his mount. Sei grinned at the notion of the frog beating the much larger animal, but knew it would be practically impossible. After all, Jensen really had no abilities besides riling people up and break dance fighting. Those two abilities would be lost in his current form.

As Sei began to run towards the Berevar bear, Lijom managed to climb her way out of the tree. The guide quickly walked her way in front of the massive beast. The animal quickly stopped its bucking around and looked at the older woman. Lijom brought a hand across the beasts face, and it seemed to calm down a bit. The bear then simply turned around and walked off, as if he were uninterested in the party now. What remained of the animals were now upon William in the Icehenge, and if Sei's strategy was implemented properly, would be taken care of soon enough.

"Lijom, what was that?" Sei asked as he came to the side of the woman. Anita had begun her own descent down the tree. Jensen had found his way back to the group, still a frog, as Lijom looked to Sei with a wry smile.

"Berevar Cubs are very territorial. They might seem like vicious beasts, but they're herbivores. They only eat the frozen plants here. Once they get into a rage, it's hard for them to quit unless someone makes them realize that their target is no longer on their grounds. Your frog man distracted the beast long enough for me to make the cub realize we were out of its territory.

Sei raised his eyebrows at the explanation. The things that had just nearly killed them all were plant eaters? Sei wondered why they were blessed with such massive jaws if all they ate were plants. Probably due to the fact that most of the plants in Berevar were frozen solid. Anita had gotten some gauze out of her backpack and began wrapping the bandages around her father's head. As the rest of the group united, Sei noted that William was not among them. That was good, that meant the Icehenge trial was underway.

"Did you say, Berevar Cubs?!" Stephanie asked in shock, causing the whole group to turn to Lijom.

"Oh yes. Those were babies. I imagine their mother should be back shortly." Lijom seemed rather calm about all this.

And Jensen was a frog.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen’s little frog frame jumped around, trying to be included in the conversation. Everyone was talking about bear cubs, or plants or something, he was having more trouble hearing them now that he was so low to the ground. Not to mention the freezing cold had gotten to him.

At last he formulated a plan, jumping upon Stephanie’s leg, over to Adolph’s elbow, off that and onto Stephanie’s shoulder. He nearly slipped off her, and she flinched terribly as she shrieked swatting him away, his body tumbling five feet away from them, but for his tiny size it may as well been five hundred miles. He bounced into the snow with a soft crunching sound, his accelerated ride coming to an end.

“Rib,” he whined again, getting onto his stomach as he looked upwards and hopped out of the tiny hole he made, crunching into the snow as he made his way back to them. This time they were all looking for him, seeing if he was around, but he just croaked a couple times, jumping upon Anita’s bag as the girl was rifling through it for a pair of scissors to cut the gauze around Sei’s head.

She looked to him when she pulled the cutlery out, a devilish smile on her face as she made an attempt to poke him. Not finding the joke funny he hopped over her arm, onto her shoulder, and dropped a little present she wouldn’t soon forget as he hopped upwards and onto Lijom’s shoulder. He steadied himself, the guide not moving as she smiled, turning her head to look at the newcomer with a mischievous smile.

“Why hello, little one,” she mused.

“RIBBIIIIITTTT!” Jensen said heatedly. Of course, when Lijom replied he was a bit taken back.

“Me? Do something terrible like that? I’m just a smelly, ugly, tour guide with a pent up need to get my sexual kicks by luring people to their deaths, for no man will ever sleep with me. That’s what you thought, wasn’t it?”

“<Listen bitch, only one faggot telepath will be reading my mind, now drop the charade and turn me back!>“ Jensen nearly fell of her shoulder and gripped tighter with his webbed digits.

“I don’t speak frog, sorry.”

“<What the hell do you want from me?>“ Jensen whined.

“Oh nothing much,” she mumbled as if this was the smallest thing in the world. “Respect, you to kiss my feet, the world to accept unicorns without freaking out, and racial tolerance of all man.” she smiled, knowing how the frog would react.

“<Pointy eared leaf lickers deserve no respect!>“ Jensen shot out, not sure why he felt the need to defend his intolerant racisms of the elven culture. “<Okay, ha ha, you pulled a fast one on Jensen the Bigot. I’m seeing that a joke against other people can sometimes go to far and I should repent and live my life according to the word of the lord, Jebus or something. I dunno, picked it up from a drunk moogle at a karaoke bar. Don’t ask.>“ Lijom just looked to him with a pleasant smile. “<Turn me back, bitch.>“

“Or you will what? Lick me to death with your disgusting tongue?” She whispered to him, eyes lighting up as if this was the worst thing that could ever possibly happen to her life. She chuckled to him as she lifted her hand, stroking his back with one finger. “It gets lonely on the road, a traveling companion would be nice.”

“<Hey, I’m already an indentured servant to that fairy king, Sei.>“ She shrugged.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind loaning you to me for a few thousand years, immortal one.” Jensen’s frog like jaw dropped. How the hell did she know that? Last he recalled she was out of ear shot when Stephanie made her death threats, but then again she did seem like some kind of witch.

“<By the horsemen…>“ Jensen cursed as he looked to Lijom, piecing together who she really was.

Before he could reveal her identity a large, earth quaking roar penetrated the veil of peace for the time being, as a large white bear with glittering red eyes, golden flakes parting around in the iris’, stalked over to them with the anger of a mother who just watched her children slaughtered.

“RIB!” Jensen shouted jumping onto Sei’s shoulder.

[Revenant]

Too many things were happening around William, and they were happening too fast for the revenant to keep up.

All thoughts of his comrades fell by the wayside, lost amid his growing urgency. Not that he could provide any use to them at that moment. The bears were closing in on him which meant that they weren’t attacking Sei’s daughter or their helpless guide, and that was enough for William. Sei and his bodyguards would have to do the rest. Assuming any of his companions still lived at all.

Best to take them one at a time, William reasoned, trying to prioritize the threats that assailed him. Not that it would have done any good to do so, each one was life threatening in its own right and they would certainly not wait their turn to be dealt with. As he saw it, there were three major factors facing him at that moment.

The first, and most obvious, was the charred doppelganger of his demonic form that stalked around the edges of Icehenge, maintaining a slow, steady distance from him. William at least had the comfort of knowing exactly what capabilities the doppelganger held, assuming of course it mirrored his own abilities as well as his looks. But knowing of the inhuman strength and savagery that was denied to him and given to his opponent did little to ease William’s tension.

And then there were the bears. It would only be a matter of moments before the snowy beasts were upon him and William had no illusions about how long he would last at the mercy of the creature’s savage fangs and claws in his demonic form let alone his human one. William’s only hope was that he would somehow be able to set the bears against his doppelganger. But even if that unlikely event were to occur he would still have to deal with the third, and most insidious, danger that he faced.

The unnatural cold that had suppressed his demonic power had not let up. That cold and the sapping, numb feeling that it left on him, was by far the most dangerous thing facing him right now. Even if he somehow managed to avoid the charging bears, and somehow managed to defeat his demonic mirror, he would still have the deadly cold to deal with. He was fortunate that the intense heat of his demonic form had dried his clothes following his impromptu swim or he would have already been frozen stiff.

And then the bears arrived and the doppelganger charged and all decisions were taken from William.

[Silence Sei]

The massive teeth blended in well with the bare whiteness all around. The cubs may have disappeared, but Mom was home, and she was angry. Sei's group felt the hot breath of the roar as it blew past them. The force of the wind knocked Anita onto her bum. Lijom held onto Sei's arm as Jensen the frog held onto his shoulder. Stephanie and Adolph both managed to keep still as well in the face of this new danger.

Sei gazed at the red eyes, looking to his group while the beasts roar subsided. Anita could swear that she was now deaf. As Lijom released Sei's arm, the mute sprouted two butterfly wings from his back. The orange and blue colors were a welcome addition to the drab palette that was Berevar's ice land. The telepath leapt into the air with Jensen still upon his shoulder, flying upwards and then straight towards mother bear.

"That's what I've been waiting to see, Om Mystic..." Lijom mumbled as she looked to Anita. The girl was absolutely sure that the tour guide was confused about Sei's race, or she had developed a speech impediment when discussing her father. The girl and the tour guide quickly made their way back to the tree, feet crunching in the snow as a nearly invisible paw came down towards Stephanie and Adolph.

The two knights moved to the right and left respectively, and began their charge. The eyes were too high up to target, so this would be a came of swinging wildly and hoping to hit something. Sei and Jensen, on the other hand, were flying well above the gigantic form of the bear. Sei closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to feel for something. As soon as the mute had felt the body heat of the animal, he dove downwards, propping his feet in front of him as the heat grew warmer.

They were now in what could only be described as a forest of white hair. Strands of the bear’s mane towered over them like oak trees in Concordia. Sei shuddered at the thought of this beast having fleas or ticks. That would be a difficult battle in and of itself, and the only available ally he had....

...Was a frog....

Sei smiled as he pried Jensen off of his shoulder. He hadn't given a second thought to the amphibian defying all logic by not being asleep due to the intense cold. "If danger aside from the bear comes, Jensen, it looks like its buffet time for you," Sei grinned at the thought of his primary bodyguard eating giant bugs to protect him. Surely Kyla would hear about such deeds, if only so she could be in on the joke as well. Sei kneeled down and patted the frog on its mucus-coated head.

"Keep an eye out for its weak points. I'm opening the channels in your mind so you can talk with me through thought."

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen the frog was afraid of nothing. He hopped out onto the colossal sized beasts back, his eyes scanning outwards for things to attack. Then all at once he felt the influencing mind of Sei jump into his skull, talking to him. Knowing he had the ability to talk with Sei the frog hopped and turned towards his lord with big red beady eyes.

“Fuck you.” Was Jensen’s first words to his employer. He jumped and turned back, looking over the bear with confusion. “Uh…what am I supposed to do, again?” Jensen was lost for ideas as he watched Sei move forwards, his blades twirling in his hands. “Hey, Fagot Fairy King, I’m talking to you!” Jensen hopped after him, his leaps keeping up with the brisk jog the mute was doing.

“Think of something,” the mute grinned. “You’re a senior knight. You must have a few tricks up your sleeve…oh, never mind. You don’t wear clothing anymore…” The mystic seemed to be chuckling.

“Oh hardy har har,” Jensen sassed as he dived to the left, the beasts mass moving as Stephanie and Adolph did a few flanking attacks to try and cut it down. “Am I the only one who isn’t enjoying this particular point of my life?”

“I assure you,” Sei thought into his mind with all seriousness. “We all think this is absolutely hysterical.”

Jensen just croaked and kept hopping, chasing after Sei and looking for soft flesh for Sei's blades to cut.

~*~*~

Stephanie’s frame fell into the snow, drifting a few feet as she made a nice tunnel. The back hand she received jarred a lot of her senses, and the feeling of being buried alive shoved her fingers into clawing action as she dug herself out, shaking the snow off her face as she watched Adolph attempt another swing at the beasts hind quarters. In return all he got was his weapon bouncing off the flesh, and an angry roar that floored him as it tried to swipe his head off.

She couldn’t get over the size of the thing. It was beyond huge! Then again, she had to imagine that the Berevar Bears they fought earlier were mere cubs, so this thing was a giant to begin with. She placed her punch ring on the belt loop, clasping it shut. It wouldn’t do her any good as she watched Adolph stand up and dust the snow off his shoulders. Both of them made wide runs, attempting to distract it as they both silently prayed that Sei and Jensen would defeat this thing.

She sighed to herself thinking how Jensen was a frog, so that meant only Sei would be their saviors.

“Cross cut, dive forward, X pattern slash the pelvic region.” Adolph ordered. Stephanie nodded once and both were off, diving on opposite sides, but running outwards the same point in the center. Stephanie saw the discarded clothing of her immortal friend and stopped low, picking up his punch knife as they both jumped to avoid the beast falling upon them. When they rolled to their feet they sprinted, Adolph’s claymore held over his shoulder while Stephanie’s punch dagger was lifted to her chest. They reached their goal and both swung fiercely, drawing up small cuts that leaked blood upon their backs as they rushed out and turned to see how the bear would react.

It paid them no mind, rushing towards the tree with Anita and Lijom.

[Revenant]

The roar of the bears amplified as they entered Icehenge until the sound was not only deafening, but painful. Left with no time to question what to do or how to react, William closed his eyes and let all thoughts flow from his mind. All of the fear, all of the worry, all of the desire for victory, all of it was swept away by the keening wail that whipped around the revenant. And there, in the stillness of his mind, William heard a small, quiet voice. He could not understand the strange words that the voice spoke, but they nevertheless resonated deep within his warped, twisted soul. They were words of power and though they gave him no aide, no strength or speed, they gave him encouragement, and by listening to them William knew what he must do.

The revenant’s hard eyes opened no more than a heartbeat after they closed, and yet it seemed like all the time in the world had passed. Though the reverberations off the shimmering pillars of Icehenge told William that the agonizing sounds continued to rebound from their icy surface, everything around William was eerily silent. Though the revenant knew nothing of Icehenge, its purpose, or the ancient magic that suffused the site, the flash of insight that he had received told him that he had nothing to fear from the charging ice bears. Left with no hesitation or uncertainty, William lunged forward to meet his doppelganger.

It was a dangerous game that William played. He knew full well just what he was capable of in his demonic form, the inhuman strength that coursed through those veins. Visions of mutilated corpses flashed through his mind, each and every one of them a soldier or a fighter who had not been strong enough to survive the unending power of his rage. Oh sure, there had been survivors, but their numbers were nearly meaningless next to the countless people who had fallen beneath his claw as wheat falls before the thresher. And to top it all off, William didn’t even have any appreciable fighting skill without the blind hack-and-slash mentality of his alter ego. Sure the years he spent as a woodsman prior to his transformation meant that he could swing an axe with the best of them, but that hardly mattered when there was no axe for miles. What he did have was knowledge.

William prayed to whatever force happened to be listening at the time that the doppelganger inherited his power but not his mind. The unrelenting pressure of the demonic rage that lurked just behind his eyes was overpowering at times, and even after years of self-discipline and focus there were times when William just couldn’t manage to keep control of his actions and fell into a blind berserker rage. Fighting a mindless raving beast had its downsides, but it would also make the creature easier to outsmart. A ghost hint of a smile formed on William’s face as he saw the charging revenant cock his arms back in preparation for a lunging thrust. It was a straight-forward and direct attack with little thought for tactics and subtlety, and it was exactly what William was hoping to see. It meant that the creature was acting on its base instincts, and though he would still be a force that was likely to be insurmountable, the scales of balance had shifted slightly in William’s favor.

Knowing that the revenant would lunge forward in a two-handed strike at the first opportunity, William dropped his shoulders into his own charge and prepared what he hoped would be an adequate counter maneuver. It required precision, split-second timing, but William knew well just what he was capable of and did not fail to catch the exact moment that was required. Just before the doppelganger’s clawed hands shot forward, William dropped his shoulders and dove at the creature’s legs. He brought his arms across as he dove, driving forward with his elbows as the twisted bone of his opponent’s claws passed harmlessly over his head. If the two men were on more stable ground, the force with which William collided into the creature’s knees would have likely snapped the joints, but the mirrored opponents fought not on stable ground but on smooth ice. As soon as William connected with his doppelganger’s legs, the creature’s feet spun out from under him and he ended his feral charge with an ungainly flight to the other side of Icehenge. William himself slid on his gut for a short distance, giving himself that much more time and distance from the doppelganger to plan his next course of action, before rolling back to his feet.

Looking back, William was pleased to see that the doppelganger flailed uncontrolled on the smooth ice floor, more of victim of its own unthinking, incoherent rage than of William’s slight attack. Even more pleasing to William was the sight of the entire group of ice bears charging between Icehenge’s border pillars towards the now much closer charred creature.

Ha, William laughed. He knew that the bears would most likely tear his doppelganger to pieces and then turn their attention towards himself, but William also knew that the thrashing revenant was still a force to be reckoned with and would at least do some damage to the bears before he expired. The laughter died on William’s lips, however, when the bears crossed into Icehenge. Instead of surrounding the downed revenant and pouncing, the bears froze. Literally. Within a matter of seconds, each bear that crossed into Icehenge was nothing more than a solid mass of pure, smooth, bear shaped ice. William gaped in near disbelief, though a hint of common sense told him that this was what the odd voice in the back of his mind had meant about the bears not being a threat. Still, it was an awesome sight to behold, especially if the viewer had no idea that it was going to happen. But William’s marveling was cut short as his doppelganger finally regained his feet and charged him from across Icehenge once again.

[Silence Sei]

Sei and Jensen travelled the mountain of hair, looking for a single clue about how to weaken the bear. As he ran through the thick fur, he heard rustling coming from all sides. Sei grinned a bit as he looked down towards his amphibian compatriot.

"You know, Jensen. I might allow Kyla to kiss you now." The words caused the frog to turn around, and even Sei could tell his frog eyes had widened.

"Really?!"

"Yes, perhaps if she does it, you'll stay in the form you are now. The frog body is more of a prince suit than your old one was." Sei grinned as the frog leapt at him in a blind rage. Moving his head to the side, Sei let out inaudible laughter as the creature fell back behind the mystic. Sei was so busy enjoying himself, he did not hear the buzzing coming from behind them.

"Fairy King, I think we have bigger problems than me and Kyla..." Jensen said, causing Sei to turn around.

Flies that were roughly the size of baseballs were buzzing about the great fur forest the two warriors were in. Sei didn't know the origin of the insects, or why they insisted on being atop such a large bear. What Sei did know is that he was now ready for combat again, drawing out the Kusari-Gama he used as a makeshift belt. As Sei began to swing the chain to the weapon, however, his eyes took notice of something.

A pink rope quickly stuck to one of the fly's massive legs. It was quickly ripped apart while returning to the source of the rope, which turned out to be Jensen's tongue. Jensen quickly spat out the appendage, hinting to Sei that this was on pure instinct alone. Grinning, Sei stepped closer to the frog as the other three flies surrounded them, the first too preoccupied with the loss of its leg to notice anything else.

"I guess now is your time to shine, Frog Prince."

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen hopped back and forth, moving between Sei’s legs as the annoying flies tried to attack him. He croaked loudly, doing his best to achieve a state of complete being, but focusing while he was so hungry made it difficult. Twice already he continued to assault the grounded fly, attempting to cave into his hunger.

Sei was doing his best to swat at them, whipping around in a frenzy of motion as he cleaved one in half, only to be pushed over by another that tried to suck his face off. Jensen hopped into the air, tackling it as he fell back on the fur with a squirming fly in his mouth. He chomped down a few times, consuming it’s terrible taste with enthusiasm with a mighty gulp, and the fly was gone.

Mmm, tasty… Jensen mused as he looked for more flies to eat. Then he thought about how no sane woman would ever kiss a guy who ate flies. Shaking his head he tried to get the habit out of his mind, but the temptations were just to much as he darted his tongue out and lapped it between the wings, dragging it downwards. He pounced it with a zealous nature, smiling as he licked his chops before Sei’s foot came crashing down.

“We need to kill this thing, then you can feast,” Jensen whined a bit in protest, but eventually hopped after Sei as he cut the final fly down. As they ran Jensen’s tongue whipped out, grabbing one last tasty morsel as he fluttered his eyes in pleasure. Sei merely shook his head as they climbed through bear back mountain.

“I’m totally dating your daughter,” Jensen thought to his lord.

“I would probably consider it if you showed a mediocre amount of respect.” The y both darted to the side as another wave of flies came at them, the bear’s back moving in a rush as it chased down what seemed to be a tree. They surrounded Sei, making it difficult for the mute to move.

“PAPA!” Anita cried, and at once both frog and mute glanced to the other thinking of the girl in danger. Lijom also cried for help, but Jensen didn’t really seem to mind that so much. Should something have happened to Anita however, her sister Kyla probably wouldn’t favor Jensen. He darted outwards towards their screams. He reached the bears head, moving furiously in tandem with the shifting mass as he hopped around to get a good grip. The bear was almost at the tree, and both women looked terrified.

“RIBB!” Jensen shouted, trying to warn them to get off the branch they were on. But they didn’t seem to notice him over the earth quaking roar of the momma bear. Jensen hopped over a small patch of fur, and looked to them, his eyes no longer obstructed.

Anita pointed behind Jensen, and the immortal turned to see one very deadly looking eye starring at him like prey. A colossal sized paw lifted up, trying to swat him away like a fly, but the knight had other plans as his tongue darted out and hit the iris. Irritably the bear stood up, screaming a blood curtling cry as Jensen hopped towards the tree and made one desperate leap onto a branch where he moved towards Lijom.

“<Get the hell off the tree! You’re sitting ducks!>“ Lijom nodded once grabbing his froggy sides and placing him on her shoulder, helping Anita down as she ordered her to move. “<Change me back, I can’t fight like this!>“ he croaked. Lijom stubbornly shook her head.

“Jensen, you really screwed up this time!” Anita howled. “What did you do, eat a mushroom?” She chided as she went to slap the immortal. Defensively he jumped up onto Lijom’s head, croaking in a menacing fashion. Over all it looked rather silly. “People are going to die because you couldn’t stop making an ass of yourself, you happy now?”

“<So when you going to tell her it was your fault, bitch?>“ Jensen muttered as his tongue darted out to slap away Anita’s reaching claws. She screamed in disgust, looking into her bag for something to whack him with.

“Anita, there is a bear trying to eat us, perhaps you can save your angst towards him for another time?” Lijom pleaded. The girl pulled out her traveling map, rolling it into itself as she made a makeshift club. With deadly eyes she glanced to the frog.

“<She’s gonna kill me!>“ Jensen screamed.

“I’m going to kill you, Jensen,” Anita said heatedly.

“Learn your lesson yet?” Lijom asked.

“<What lesson is there to learn? I’m a jack ass who hates all forms of life and ruins the lives of those around me to compensate for the fact I can’t have a life. I got emotional issues mostly to do with my childhood and growing up! Did you think turning me into a frog would absolve me of my ways?>“ Lijom looked to Jensen and thought about it as she glanced to Stephanie and Adolph, watching them valiantly hold off the colossal bear, but soon they wouldn’t be able to, the beasts wrath killing them as it tore into everything. Even the mystic Sei wouldn’t be able to stop it unless he had some help.

“Oh fine, you win, Immortal,” She hissed . She lifted her hand and blocked the swat from Anita, lifting her other hand and grabbing Jensen. She petted him three times on the back before pulling her arm behind her in a perfect arc.

“<Wait a second, what are you think->“ Jensen never had a chance to finish his statement as Lijom tossed him into the air like a tiny ball, his legs flailing as he soared like a bird upwards. The beast roared at Lijom, but despite the rancid odor it did nothing to deter the fast frog.

“RIBBBIIITTT!” Jensen bellowed before he was gulped in one go.

[Revenant]

There was no doubt that his previous ploy of knocking the creature’s legs out from under it would be anticipated and useless now. Even though the charred demon-corpse was lost in a savage, bestial haze of bloodlust, it was still more than cognizant enough to recognize and counter a similar attempt, should William be foolish enough to try. The half- second that he allowed himself to spare to take a glance around showed that, as he had suspected, there would be no running and no further respite from the impending meeting between him and the claws of his double. Still, inside his breast burned a fire as raw and primal as anything the demon could muster, and William refused to give the creature the satisfaction of being able to overtake a fleeing opponent from behind. Left with no other option, William bellowed a challenge and made his own charge in response to the one made by his doppelganger.

If the beast held any surprise at William’s impulsive counter-charge, it did not display it. Likely whatever ancient magic used to create the mirror image from the shining realm on the other side of Icehenge’s massive pillars also imbued the creature with William’s knowledge and a similar kindred feeling. It would know that William would be unable to pull off another unexpected strike and would understand that the revenant was taking the matter of his death into his own hands. Perhaps the creature would understand all this and would feel a sense of pride and understanding, though William knew better than to expect any measure of pity or restraint along with that pride.

The doppelganger struck first, as William knew he would, driven by the unstoppable tide of rage crashing washing across his mind. The creature widened its stance to stabilize its base and to deter another attempt from William to knock it from its feet. The attack came fast and low, a wide sweeping slash from the bottom of the creature’s range that tore up in a savage, forceful motion. Despite the creature taking a more stable footing, William had thought, only for a moment, about trying to redo his previous diving maneuver, thinking that the creature would be caught off-guard again, only this time by the repetition rather than the actual dive. But the savage tearing motion of the claws on William’s opponent made the revenant glad that he had not done so, as those claws would have taken him in the side of the head had he done so. Not to say that not doing so had put him out of the range of those wicked, ripping splinters of charred bone, but at least he had not served himself up on a platter. As it was, the claws came up at him with an almost absolute finality, but as the doppelganger’s arm swept along its intended course William knew that his opponent had once again under thought its actions.

Instead of diving at the doppelganger again William decided to make his own attack. The tight arc of the doppelganger’s swiping claw pulled up harmlessly between the two combatants. Knowing that William possessed no fighting skill aside from the natural brawling technique that it itself was using, the creature hadn’t thought that William would stop short to make his attack instead of charging into his opponent with wild abandon. Just outside of the missed swipe William launched a twirling kick, cursing himself as he did so, in poor mimicry of the laughing idiot Jensen Ambrose. Whatever else William might have thought about Jensen and his idiotic dance-fighting technique, he at least had to admit that the man’s fighting style was wild and unexpected enough to catch the charred demon off-guard.

Unfortunately, the enigmatic immortal’s fighting style was also a tad more precise and well-timed than it looked and William’s unexpected spinning kick did little more than slam awkwardly into the charred demon’s shoulder and push heavily against the creature. It was at this point that the creature’s defensive base came into account, and William could do little more than watch helplessly as his trailing leg slid on the ice and twisted out from under him while his opponent remained stable and upright. William expected to feel the sharp, knifing pain of his mirror’s claws delving into his flesh at any moment, but instead found that the creature did little more than stand over his fallen body and glare down with disdain.

“Fuck you, Jensen,” William spat, looking up from his awkwardly prone position. He had made a gambit and failed, but at least he had tried. Snarling his disapproval, the creature gripped William’s leg, still propped up against the creature’s shoulder, twisted around and, with a heave of his enhanced, supernatural strength, sent William’s body hurtling helplessly through the air to crack painfully against one of the frozen blocks of ice that had only moments before been a ferocious bear.

[Silence Sei]

Sei looked horrified as the bear clamped down on what was once Jensen Ambrose the frog. He then became distracted once again when one of the giant flies slammed into the back of his head. The mute could feel the sticky legs of the insect as it pulled out a tuft of hair off of the mute's top. Sei growled as he grabbed his Gemini Blades and began to spin them in a whirlwind fashion to each side of him.

When the flies came charging once more, Sei brought the larger of the two blades up, slicing the insect completely down the middle. Before it could even fall to the ground, Sei had thrown his s-shaped blade into the multi-eyed face of another bug. The fly dropped with a thud-like sound that satisfied the telepath. When he heard buzzing from behind him once more, the mute performed a complete back flip, his knees driving into the head of the oversized foe.

The rest of the bugs were as stupid as their brethren, and continued to go after Sei. The mute just rebuked their efforts with his single sword and unmatched agility. Finally, Sei was starting to become quite tried of all the trouble these flies were causing, and closed his eyes. When Sei heard a sound similar to that of a bird slamming into a breaking window, he smiled. One of the dumb insects activated Mystic Protection, the trademark spell of the mute's people.

The glass that had shattered entirely around Sei in response to the attack shot out in all directions. Sei's eyes remained closed as his ears came across the symphony of flies dropping onto the back of his epic mount. When the telepath opened his eyes, any fly that wasn't dead due to the overabundance of glass shards was upside down, twitching, and bleeding out. The putrid smell of the bug blood churned Sei's stomach, and the mute covered his mouth in an attempt to keep from vomiting.

But like any girl who had too much fun with the girls, Sei knew that was not going to work.

The chunks of soured milk, corn chunks, and steak shreds fell to the ground almost instantaneously. The mute looked to his free hand to find it covered with the foul smelling concoction as well. Sei looked around and finally decided to wipe the vomit-soaked hand on the back of the Berevar Bear. He then heard the sound of a stomach disagreeing once more. As he went to cover his own orifice once more, he realized something.

The sound wasn't coming from him, it was coming from the bear....

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Stephanie skidded across the ground as she bounced a few feet away, her body sore from a vicious backhand that was swung in a wild swing. Sei and Jensen had done something to upset the beast, but it didn’t even bother to focus on what irritated it as it roared again. Snow drift fell upon her body, burying her again as she felt her limbs growing numb. Painfully she lurched herself to her feet, watching Adolph dive in with a low cleaving strike meant to hinder the beasts attempts at advancing on Lijom and Anita.

It failed rather pitifully as the beast moved on with not one care more about the annoying humans that kept it from its prey. Stephanie ran after beast flanking Adolph as he shrugged to her, both not knowing what the hell to do. The beast was just to strong for them.

They observed as the tiny frog like Jensen jumped upon Lijom’s head, his croaking a barely audible whisper in the wind. Then they both stopped, eyes wide as Jensen went soaring again, this time into the mouth of the mother bear.

“What the hell?” Stephanie cried looking angrily towards Lijom. “She just chucked Jensen into the bear’s mouth!” She gripped the immortal’s punch dagger in her hand tightly as she seethed, seeing the guide run off with Anita in tow. The sound of Sei’s mystical protection echoed in the air, and like the glass that shattered so to did Stephanie’s anger as she remembered she had a fight to win.

Lijom could pay later.

Adolph covered her back as they ran, both flanking the bear as they pounded upon it with their weapons, shallowly cutting it, but in the beasts adrenaline rush it paid those cuts no mind. They had no clue what to do as they ran, eventually realizing at this rate Anita and Lijom would be dinner if somebody didn’t change the situation soon. The two ran forwards, both nodding as one as they thought the same thing. Together they had to take the heat of the bear and direct it away from Anita. That was their priority.

Stephanie, being the swifter of the two, ran forwards and turned, looking the bear in the face.

“Hey ugly! Ya, I’m talking to you fatty!” She bellowed. “I killed your babies, what the hell you think about that, huh?” The bear didn’t seem to notice her. “HEY!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. Still it paid no attention to the female knight as it stalked Anita and Lijom. Desperate for anything to work Stephanie lifted the punch knife up and tossed it at the bear. The blade soared up and into the beasts mouth, right as it roared and it took a moment to swallow the metal before growing irritated as it growled to her. It’s hot breath washed over the girl and she felt like passing out from the exhaustion on her body.

Then, just as it was about to attack it stopped, it’s growls turning to groans. It let out a mournful wail as it stood up and rubbed one paw along its belly, before falling back down onto it’s stomach tiredly. It beat its paw around the ground, knocking snow upwards like tiny explosions as Sei flew to safety towards his daughter and Lijom. When it opened it’s mouth to moan, another sound accompanied it, a sound that made all who heard it groan with the bear.

A maddening laughter came from deep within the belly of the beast.

The beast’s body flopped around, it’s gorans turning into painful cries of agony as Jensen cut, ripped, and tore his way up the beasts body towards the mouth, his laughter getting stronger, though it sounded like it was strained, his body choking on fluids as he fought his way out. Eventually the bear stood up to it’s back legs, bracing itself as it retched. The motion made everyone sick to their stomach’s, and Jensen’s laughter turned to a panicky chuckle. Eventually the beast groaned long enough, vomiting as bile came up along with blood and a few parts of the bears innards. Last to leave, in a glorious fit of laughter like a child on a water slide was Jensen Ambrose, the enigmatic immortal back to his regular non frog like self.

It should be noted the immortal was naked as well.

The knight gripped his punch knife in hand, digging into the tongue of the beast as it howled, slamming it’s jaws shut trying to crush him, but when it opened its jaw again the immortal came up, slamming the weapon into the roof of the beasts mouth, drilling his weapon as far up it would go until a large portion of his arm was inside the bear’s head. He pulled his weapon out with a wet slop, blood dripping down all over in a crimson shower as he stabbed upwards again, screaming in laughter as he repeated the process.

The bear shouted repeatedly to try and relieve the pain, it’s jaws and tongue darting around, but the immortal held strong as he beat the beast with his weapon in hand.

“Die you fucking bear, die!” Jensen sang, laughing wildly as the caved mouth of the beast echoed the wails of mirth over the forest. All things considered it was a disturbing sight to behold as blood caked the ground from the bears mouth, until eventually it fell down to the side with a mighty lurch, its breaths ragged and raspy.

Jensen heaved as his lungs burned, the cold air nipping at his naked body as he stepped out the beasts mouth woozily, not used to using both his legs without hopping. Stephanie and Adolph gave him a surprised look, Anita frowned avoiding his unmentionable areas as Sei merely glanced to him.

As he looked to them all he lifted his head back in triumph, laughing hysterically as he cried out his victory over the beast before lowering his face into an insane grin. He observed each of their faces with a feral look, and it was Sei who at last broke the awkward tension.

“Jensen, in the Ixian Knight’s we have a strict pants policy. Please observe it in the future.” Sei said thoughtfully.

[Revenant]

The pain in William’s chest told him that at least three ribs had been separated, or possibly broken, by the literal ice bear that provided a convenient backstop. Each breath was laborious and felt as if he were being forced to draw the air through the folds of his thick travelling cloak. And if that weren’t bad enough, the icy fingers of the frozen wasteland that wormed through his flesh were now joined by a heatless, throbbing burn. His intent was to catch his doppelganger off-guard enough to get out of the creature’s way, but he saw now that he was a fool to think that he could challenge the inhuman beast in physical combat and he was in no position to stand and walk let alone run fast enough to escape.

Not that the creature would have let him get away at this point. The power coursing through William’s veins gave him inhuman strength and speed but the peak of those physical enhancements only came with the full release of that power. The creature’s molten power ran free and clear through his veins, pumping him to unnatural proportions while William’s remained locked in Icehenge’s shimmering grasp. William, in peak shape, had ne chance of outrunning the creature without some method of keeping the creature distracted. Now, he was left with no choice but to kill or be killed, and the weight of his disadvantage pressed on him like a tombstone.

The doppelganger grinned at him from across the smooth ring of ice. It was the same malevolent shark’s tooth grin that William knew so well. It was a grin of cold fury, of intelligent maliciousness, and it was a grin that meant William’s death. If the creature were nothing more than a mindless beast then William would have at least stood a chance of outsmarting the thing, but without the red tide clouding its actions, the creature was a brutally cold and efficient killer. What William needed was a way to rouse the red tide again, a way to break that calm, killing focus. There was one thing that William knew irked him above all else, and if this creature really were a mirror copy of him then he prayed to whoever listened that it worked. It was going to hurt, he knew, given the status of his ribs, but the pain would be preferable to a shredding death at his own claws.

And so, with nothing left to lose William gritted his teeth against the pain and began to laugh. It was a shrill, mocking laugh devoid of mirth or pleasure. It was a laugh of madness and futility as much as it was a laugh of hope. It was the same type of laughter that Jensen used to drive all thought and reason from William’s mind when the two of them came to blows, and if there was one thing in Althanas that could get William to lose his mind it was that laughter.

True enough, the instant William began to laugh the doppelganger’s posture shifted. The composed nature with which the creature stalked towards William vanished, replaced by a tense, primal hatred. William maintained the laugh as the creature drove itself forward with reckless abandon. It would snuff the life from him in an instant if it could, but William’s hand slid down and pulled his cloak away from his belt, knowing that he had one last gambit to play.

The creature arrived and jumped at William, thrusting both clawed hands forward and out to spear the revenant like a piece of overly sauced meat from a Radasanthian street vendor. William tensed, ignoring the pressure in his head and the pain in his chest. He ignored the fear he felt, the rage in the creature’s smoldering eyes, and the eternal cold of the shimmering pillars. And then, just before the creature’s claws took hold of him, William twisted and rolled to one side. Just above him, the creature’s struck the Berevar bear’s frozen form and with a shattering crack, plunged the creature elbow deep into the icy corpse. It would only take a few seconds for the creature’s molten aura to melt the ice bear enough to free it, but those few seconds were enough. William wrenched the iron hunting knife that he wore from its sheath like a possessed man and drove it into the base of the creature’s skull. Hot blood splashed from the wound to cover William’s hands, buzzing his frozen hands to life with a sensation like a hundred bee-stings but the revenant would not be distracted or deterred. The knife pulled back once and then flew back in; ensuring that it’s terrible purpose was fully realized.

[Silence Sei]

Anita had seen more of Jensen than she had ever wished to. Even covered in the bile and vomit of the beast, it was hard not to laugh at the Apocalypse Knight. Now why exactly the girl was laughing, she would never say, and it would probably irk Jensen forever. Sei ha already began to approach his body guards, looking Adolph over a few times before he went over to Stephanie. When Sei assessed the damages to his only female protector, his eyes caught labored breathing, as well as a couple of nervous twitches.

"You're hurt," Sei noted, but only to his escort. The girl seemed to be glaring at her employer, and she simply shook her head. "Don't lie. It doesn’t become you.” Sei’s words were meant for more than just the girl’s injuries. Stephanie looked away from the man with a huff, still trying to feign a better condition than what she was in. A few moments later, Lijom had approached the two, a slight smile upon her face.

“Seems everyone here works together well as a team,” she said, her posture seeming to be a bit different than the old lady the group had met before. “I think we’ll take care of those injuries in no time!” Lijom slammed the back of her wrinkled hand into Stephanie’s ribs. The female knight stood up straight to protest, but quickly found that doing so didn’t come with a great pain anymore. She shifted her upper body to the left and then the right to try and find out where the hurt had gone to, but there appeared to be no sign of it. The girl looked amazed at Lijom, her gaze going over to the naked Jensen’s eyes as if she had figured it out herself.

Lijom then approached Sei, the same hand placed upon his long white cloth. “I think it’s about time we regroup with everyone. I figure your friend is either dead or has some new insight into his life.” Sei nodded in agreement with their guide, turning to the massive beast that Jensen had just slaughtered and saying another prayer for the protective mother bear. Anita approached her father, placing a hand on his shoulder just before the mute stood up. “Papa,” she said, “it was either her or us.”

“I know, but I can understand wanting to protect ones children with every fiber of their being…” Sei turned around, wrapping his arms around the neck of his teenager. He released the embrace rather quickly, his eyes darting back to Lijom. “I take it you can still lead us to the Ice Henge to find William?”

Lijom nodded and began to walk off, Stephanie following, then Jensen, Adolph and Sei. When the mute turned back to look at Anita, he saw the girl kneeling down before the corpse of the gigantic monster and saying a prayer for the mother herself. Sei smiled as he turned his head back, following his party in order to relocate their missing member.

[Revenant]

The corpse of the doppelganger faded slowly from sight, returning to whatever magic realm spawned it and William felt the heat of his power returning in equal time. Now that the test of the Icehenge was finished, the ruins had no further need of the demon power that it had leached from him. It felt like having his full body emerged in a bathtub of hot water, warm and comforting. William flexed his fingers gingerly, feeling the numbness fading from them as his aura of molten heat flowed from him.

Who would have thought that I would have missed this? he mused, watching the color return to his flexing hands. Sei had planned this and while the mystic’s plans more frequently than not led to mortal peril, as William’s most recent adventure could attest to, they were also almost always successful. Sei wanted to bring William here in the hopes that the revenant would find peace and insight, and in that he had been successful. And seeing the remainder of his group approaching the pillar, battered but intact, William knew that Sei had been successful in his other matters as well.

“So much for getting some alone time for meditation, eh?” William chuckled, waving off Sei’s hand in assistance getting to his feet. His ribs groaned in protest, not having been given enough time to heal after regaining his power, but he refused assistance. There was only one thing on his mind at the moment, and that was the man whose unlikely assistance had saved his life.

William ignored the looks of concern that Sei gave him, waving the mystic off again. He ignored the look of amazement on the faces of Anita, Stephanie, and Adolph as they took in the bear shaped blocks of ice creating a veritable wall at the edge of the relic. He even ignored the look of knowing satisfaction on the face of their mysterious guide. The burning coals of William’s eyes were locked solely on Jensen Ambrose.

“What you looking at fucktard?” the young Knight of the Apocalypse, covered only in a thick overcoat, spat as William approached. The revenant made no reply other than to put a hand on Jensen’s shoulder in a brotherly manner.

“Thank you Jensen,” William’s voice was low but there was no mistaking the words he spoke.

“Uh,” Jensen quirked an eyebrow and it seemed that, for once, he was truly speechless. William merely nodded and then slugged Jensen in the jaw, knocking the heavy coat from his shoulders and sending the naked young Knight sprawling across the ice.

All bunnying approved.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

“YES!” Anita shouted, jumping in the air with her extended fist, seeing Jensen bounce on the ground. Adolph chuckled as he watched the scene and Stephanie was immediately running over as she intercepted Jensen’s naked body from retaliating. The immortal was up, pushing against her as his fingers curled tightly.

“I killed the bear, I can kill him!” He screamed. Stephanie sighed as she pushed back, muttering about how childish the whole thing was. The Revenant merely smiled as he lowered himself and picked up his heavy jacket, brushing the dirt and snow off as he draped it around his shoulders. Jensen kept pushing, trying to trip the girl as he wanted to avenge the slight on his honor.

“Knock it off,” Stephanie mumbled loudly. “Knock it off or else!”

“Whatever, Steph, you can’t hurt me,” Jensen said heatedly. “You’re just a gi-” Jensen’s eyes shot wide open, his mouth gaping wide as he screamed silently, his knees quaking as he felt all of his body cringe as one. Soon he collapsed to his knees, Stephanie dropping with him as she gave him a death glare that had ended more than one of Jensen’s lives. She twisted upon Jensen’s jewels one more time, a tight half twist that floored the immortal in the fetal position.

“Stupid ass.” she mumbled getting up lifting a few gold out of her purse and dropping it on Jensen’s face. “Clean yourself up, you degenerate waste of space.” she turned to the others with a smile, Anita giving her a thumbs up as she grinned wildly. Lijom gave her a slight mischievous grin and Adolph, well Adolph just continued laughing.

Sei approached the downed Jensen, looking down upon him with care. Jensen just snorted into the snow his pain, grumbling to himself as he stood up. His body shivered from the cold and Sei took off his jacket handing dropping it the immortal. Adolph walked by next, pulling out a scarf and dropping it by the immortal as they walked off. Stephanie turned looking down upon him with contempt, but with a motherly smile she pulled out a sweater and dropped it before the knight walking off. Lijom walked by him, dropping off a pair of ratty gloves without much fanfare.

Anita was walked by him, stopping only to kick snow into his face before trotting off to join with Stephanie, the two giggling as they talked. The last to walk on by was William who didn’t stoop down, didn’t offer anything, or didn’t even acknowledge the immortal. He moved a few steps past him, but Jensen’s hand reached out gripping the demon hosts ankle.

“You thank me, then you sucker punch me?” Jensen asked with his teeth chattering. “You give me warmth, and then pretend it‘s nothing. What‘s going on here, Willy? You’re getting soft on me.”

The revenant didn’t look to the immortal, instead looking at Lijom and Sei as they walked. A wave of heat passed out from his cloak and Jensen greedily felt it as he scooted in a bit closer to the warmth. Instead of a reply, he instead received silence as the Revenant just walked away. Jensen looked as he walked, slowly getting dressed as best he could.

Hmmmph. Jensen watched him as he walked, studying the man seeing something new within him. This isn’t over Willy…Not by a long shot.

[Silence Sei]

Watching Jensen get hit by William was definitely amusing. Two fingers went down upon his daughter's forehead, making a loud thwacking-like sound. Anita looked to her father and quickly nodded, understanding that kicking snow in Jensen's face was rude and uncalled for. Her silent apology was enough to satisfy the telepath, who began to make his way towards William.

There was something different about the Revenant now. It seemed as though the man had found a new sense of purpose in his life. Perhaps this escapade was completely worth it. The woodsman returned Sei's gaze, seemingly eyeing the mystic's entire form himself. Sei smiled as the two sized one another up, both parties finally nodding before the mute moved on to Lijom. He had already checked on Adolph and Stephanie, but now was the matter of tending to their guest.

In Lijom's place, however, stood an oddly beautiful, her bluish-green skin tone seemed to compliment her emerald eyes. She now stood as tall as Sei, and was as young looking as Anita. Long, brown hair draped down to the top of her buttocks. Despite her outright gorgeous appearance, she was clothed in only a burlap sack, the piece of clothing just managing to cover all of the indecent parts to a woman. The sheer sight of her caused both Sei and Adolph to blush a bit, as if they were not worthy to be in this woman's presence.

"You did well with my tests, Sei Orlouge," the voice was as if the angels were singing a hymn, with a slight roughness coming from her diaphragm. Despite the fact that her voice kind of sounded as if she were coming down with some sort of throat bug, it seemed to work well with the soft tone she carried with her. "I am Jomil, the Hermitess Thayne. I imagine you have suspected this for a while now."

Sei nodded, his eyes averting the barely covered woman. "Yes Milady, ever since I took notice of the mushrooms slowly sprouting in your wake. I did not wish to speak out and reveal your nature to my friends without your consent. Also, I heard that very few have managed to make it to the Icehenge, with even fewer returning from its tests. I assumed your enthusiasm to help hinted at you being some otherworldly being."

The Goddess laugh, a sound that made Sei warm inside, as if his mother had been soothing him to sleep. "I thought as much. At first, I doubted the company you were with," Jomil spoke out, eyeing Jensen Ambrose, "but now I see that I was wrong to doubt your judge of character. All of the people here, they're willing to die for you cause, Sei Orlouge. They're willing to lay down their lives if it means you can see the light of day again, even if some are more ready to admit it than others..."

Sei looked behind him at the group. All party members had made him proud today. William had conquered the Icehenge, Jensen had taken out a behemoth, while Stephanie and Adolph made sure to protect Anita with all their might. Looking back to Jomil, Sei found himself face-to-face with the hermitess, who was now stroking the body-sized cloth draped over Sei's shoulder.

"I needed to test you to prove you were indeed the Thayne Champion my sisters claimed you were. You proved how clever you were in battle, and your judge of character is beyond pleasing. Just as N'Jal and Y'edda have welcomed you, I give you my blessing as our Champion." Sei nodded, remembering how terrified he was at the sight of N'Jal, and how mesmerized he was at Y'edda's beauty. He felt both feelings rising up when he looked towards Jomil.

"This cloth will also carry many of my abilities with it. You shall find that it will temporarily decay anything it wraps itself around, should you will it to be so. Yet, it seems that I should not just reward you. After all, your men all fought bravely today, and as such, each of them deserves their own reward." Sei nodded in agreement to the statement, looking at the cloth still hanging from his shoulder, marveling at the powers it had been given by the Goddess herself.

Anita approached Sei as Jomil began to approach William, apparently the next in line to receive a trophy from the Goddess. "As for you, William Arcus..."

[Revenant]

“You’ve passed my test,” the Goddess waved her delicate hand in an arc, gesturing at the scattered remnants around Icehenge. “I can feel your rage, William Arcus, the burning need within you.” Jomil returned her gaze to William, the same appraising stare that she had given him as Lijom the Guide. “You are an interesting specimen, two lives, two souls in constant war with each other. “

William flinched under the Hermit Goddesses cold, unwavering gaze. He could feel her, worming under his skin, laying his soul open. He had known there was something to her, something more than an ugly hag to guide them through the featureless white of Berevar. He knew little of the gods of this land, the Thayne, but he knew from what little he had learned that the woman before him represented the same wild chaos and entropy that stirred at the very core of his being. His demonic soul, the essence of destruction birthed by the force of creation, was one and the same with her.

There was nothing that he could hide from those eyes.

“Those who pass my test find a certain knowledge of themselves, or so I’m told,” Jomil said, striding close to William. “What do you say?’

The raw essence of destruction in William quivered at the Goddess’ nearness, and William had to force the fluttering sensation aside to talk.

“I … yes,” William managed to nod, “I see things … differently.”

Jomil’s laughter echoed across Icehenge. “That is no doubt an understatement.” Jomil reached out, her fingertips extending out to brush William’s eyes. Transfixed by the Goddess, William couldn’t even blink as the blue-green flesh brushed his burning eyes. “I have given you knowledge of yourself in return for passing my test and you are a creature of destruction. The knowledge I have offered you is the knowledge of your purpose.”

“My purpose,” William whispered, in awe of the creature before him. Jomil’s eyes broke contact with William, and he found himself freed from her alluring power. The revenant looked to Sei, and was surprised to see the mystic clothed in shredded rags. Beside him, Anita stood likewise garbed, and even more shocking was the fact that William could see Anita aging and decaying more and more as he watched.

“Of course,” Jomil laughed again. “You were created to destroy and now your eyes will behold the natural rhythms of decay within all things.”

“I,” William began but couldn’t find the words to finish.

“No thanks are necessary.” Jomil recovered her composure and waved William off as nothing more need be said. “I’m sure you will understand in time.”

“And now for you, little immortal,” Jomil turned her attention to Jensen.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen peered into the cold eyes of the Thayne Goddess, Jomil. It was defiantly something of note to see her in the way she looked now compared to old, smelly tour guide from before. Yet despite her beauty, despite her enchanting qualities and the gifts she had for those who passed her trials, all the immortal could think was:

“I want a gunblade, dyed black, dehlar material. I want the revolver to be a classic six shooter, not to clunky with a two finger width and a full arms length blade. I want the sheer trigger version for rapid shots, but an extended ring guard so I can twirl it around as I do Caeiporiea. Thanks sweetie, tie it in a bow for me!” He patted Jomil on the cheek as he walked by her. Stephanie merely rolled her eyes shaking her head and muttering how Jensen was an idiot.

“That wasn’t exactly the gift I was thinking.” Jomil admitted with a sly smile. “And also out of my realm of possibilities.”

“Wow, must stink being a useless goddess.” The immortal mumbled loudly scratching the back of his head. “No wonder you live life as a hermit, you suck!” Jensen laughed. Jomil joined him as she laughed, walking towards the knight as she lifted a hand to his shoulder.

“Well if you can’t give me a gun blade, how’s about a free ride behind that friendly looking bush?” Jensen raised an eyebrow in seductive intent. Jomil feigned being flattered as Jensen just coaxed her on, the scene rather entertaining until Stephanie came in with Adolph’s claymore, slamming the flat end into the back of Jensen’s head.

“Jezze Steph, what was th-ibbit for…” Jensen caught the irregularity in his speech as he glanced back up to Jomil. “Oh no you, <Ribbit>, not again! Change me back, get rid of this! It‘s bad enough I‘m cursed with immortality!” Jomil purred as she lowered herself to the ground on her knees, looking Jensen over as she stroked his hair. Jensen, uncomfortable with her touching him, turned and looked at Sei.

“SHE’S TOUCHING ME! DO SOMETHING!” Jensen screamed, shaking the last bits of snow off the trees. Sei nodded as he stepped forward, lifting up Anita’s bag as he pulled out a small toy.

“Show me on the doll where she touched you…” he grinned. Jensen screamed again as he swatted everyone away from him getting up with an indignant huff and walked forwards leading the group back towards the town in a sour attitude.

“It’s merely temporary. I’m sure he can find that useful when he bends his will to transform. Now, for you two,” She smiled turning towards Stephanie and Adolph. Adolph merely stood looking at her dumbstruck, but Stephanie for whatever reason just wasn’t trapped under her spell. She stood her ground, crossed her arms angrily over her breasts, and shook her head.

“Sorry, but I don’t want anything from you if it’s all the same.” Stephanie feigned a very hostile smile. “If you absolutely have to hand me some doggy treat, then give me a fortune cookie without any of your bullshit fortunes.” The female Jester turned and tossed the claymore back at Adolph, startling him as he weekly caught it. “Come on moron, we’re still on duty.”

“Such anger,” Jomil muttered. “I can understand why the little immortal is so angry, but you?” Stephanie stopped walking as she looked to the sky, as if debating something rather important. Then shrugging she turned pointing an accusing finger at the goddess.

“I’m angry because you manipulated all these events for your own personal stupid entertainment!” Stephanie shouted heatedly. “You turned my best friend into a frog and threw him into the mouth of that colossal bear! You endangered the life of everyone including Anita, who wouldn’t have survived had just one bear slipped through! Also, the wildlife, the bears you seemed so upset to see die, were another one of you little tests as you casually thinned out their numbers without a second thought! Not to mention all your tests seem to have this going theme of succeed or die.” she added dryly as if this was just a side note.

“I find you disgusting for who you are, Hermitess Thayne. You casually play with the lives of mortals and hide behind the fa&#231;ade of trials and soul searching enrichment and fulfillment! Well take all your preaching and go die in a fire!”

Jomil listened to her tirade, the woman’s words seeming to be completely unaffecting the Thayne. As the female knight turned and left in a similar huff of anger that Jensen performed before the mood had dramatically changed. Adolph turned to look at them before looking back at Jomil.

“Our little tight knit group has…issues…” he admitted. “Steph just gets really emotional when it comes to Jensen…” He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly as he stepped forward. “I thank you for your generosity, but I to must decline your good intentions.” Adolph stood a little straighter as he spoke with pride. “I am a Senior Knight of the Apocalypse, Jomil. I was merely doing my duty. We do not need little treats for doing that which we have been training since birth to do.” He bowed respectively to her before turning and walking after Stephanie and Jensen.

“So be it,” she said in a whisper turning back to Sei. “And what now will you do, my champion?” Jomil asked to the head of the Ixian Knights with a mischievous smile.

[Silence Sei]

"What do you think I shall do? Even a champion must return home. It's been quite the long journey for one day. As much as I appreciate all you have done for us, Lady Jomil, I would ask that you allow us to go home in peace." Anita nodded, a smile happily across her face.

Anita's blue orbs focused on Stephanie, rushing over to her and whispering something in the grumpy knight's ear. Whatever Anita said, it improved the female’s mood ten-fold. Stephanie nodded to her friend, which caused Anita to run back to Jomil and whisper something anew. The Hermitess Thayne nodded and waved her hand, a white light starting to shine from the core of each individual.

"I shall grant your request, Anita Orlouge. It seems only fair, since I had troubled you the most. I have a feeling we shall meet again, Sei Orlouge. I look forward to that day..." Jomil's last words echoed in everyone's minds as the white light began to overwhelm them, blinding the vision of all. As it began to subside, the group would find itself back home in Sei's Tomb. The scent of freshly made soup began to waft through the air, causing a smile to Anita's face.

Stephanie and Adolph each tapped Anita on the shoulder, causing the teen to turn around. Her eyes lit up as she looked at what Jomil had done for the two Apocalypse Knights. Stephanie was now holding up a pink gunblade, a small kitty cat keychain-like object at the weapon's handle. Adolph's was similar to Stephanie’s in size and design, only with a red pain coating, and an A dangling down from a small chain at the handle.

"Jensen is going to be so jealous," Anita said, which caused a giggle to escape Stephanie. As the two giggled, Adolph couldn't help but smile. Sure, neither warrior would probably ever use their weapon, but they were absolutely excellent objects for taunting Jensen with, something Anita did mercilessly. The teen looked down to her own hand and found she was holding a blue gunblade, a butterfly keychain at its hilt. The girl grew giddy with excitement as she rushed towards Jensen, waving the thing in his face with a 'nyah nyah' kind of motion.

After she was done mocking the warrior, she quickly kissed the man on the cheek, to the surprise of all. "Thanks for saving me, all kidding side, you may not be so bad after all, Jensen Ambrose." The girl said before running off. Anita was in such a haste to show off her new weapon to Kyla, the girl had not noticed that neither her father, nor William Arcus were among those standing in the Tomb's main room.

[Revenant]

William watched as Jomil granted Anita’s request and bid them all farewell. A brief flash of light filled his vision but a second later William found himself alone with the Goddess, still standing amid the biting winds that whipped through Icehenge.

“What did you do?” William asked, his question curious, not accusatory.

“Do not fret for your companions William Arcus,” Jomil laughed her tinkling laughter all at once beautiful and terrible. “I have merely sent them back home so they would not have to like in my beautiful discomfort any longer.”

“And what about me?”

“I knew that you would be unhappy to be returned to Sei’s labyrinth right now, so you remain here with me.” Jomil stalked around William, pacing like a hunting cat sizing up its prey, as she spoke. A shiver or nervousness, of pleasure, of wanton desire crawled up William’s spine at the thought of being alone with this magnificent creature and William could only nod to the Hermit Goddess that she was correct.

“I find you an interesting creature,” Jomil continued, coming to a stop behind William, her voice whispering sumptuously in his ear. “And I yearn to see what you make of my gift. What chaos it brings to both you and those around you.”

“Stephanie was right, wasn’t she,” William choked out a whispered statement. “Our lives are just your playthings, aren’t they?”

The question elicited another laugh from Jomil, this one shrill and harsh, “all existence is life or death and I find amusement in such things, so why not.

“Remember, my revenant,” Jomil’s blue-green fingers brushed the back of William’s neck, causing him to shiver in a way that the biting cold of Berever never could. “Everything comes crashing down in the end. Even those who think they can’t die will feel the touch of my entropy.” Jomil’s brushing fingers slid around until her hand was flat on his chest, and William could feel her body pressed against his back.

“You know it as well as I do,” her hot breath whispered into her ear, her lips so very close to him.

“Yes,” William panted.

William closed his eyes, savoring the delicious moment, reveling in a swell of emotions that he thought had long ago burned away from him. And then, as suddenly as she had come to them, Jomil was gone and William was alone amid the towering pillars of Icehenge.

William gritted his teeth against the fresh bite of the frosty wilderness, trying desperately to maintain a hold of the feel of the Goddess against him, but unable to stop the relentless creep of her disappearance. Finally, as the last vestiges of her vanished from him, William sighed, pulled his cloak tightly around him, and began his walking south, through the frozen lands of Berevar and Salvar beyond them, reveling in the swirling chaos within him that Jomil had created.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen and the other knights split up as they all headed in different directions, the immortal rushing to his room to get changed, a loud hissing and a shrill cry from Aislinn as his semi naked form passed by them. Stephanie shook her head looking down upon the gunblade she had received, ripped the little charm off the end of the weapon, and tossed it onto a table before muttering that she was going to shower.

Adolph looked to his weapon, deciding what to do with it before shrugging and turning to leave it in his room before looking for Ta’gas and Hotroui, the Ixian Knight’s chief trainers, to see if they wanted to go out to eat. He noted the clock on the wall, and it seemed it was just a tad bit past ten o’clock.

In his room Jensen stripped the clothing before looking around outside his door with a quick peek. When he was positive nobody was watching he took a deep breath and started to focus as hard as he could on one thing and one thing only. With all his energy pushed behind this thought his body slowly began to transform, Jensen feeling his blood starting to run cold, his heart rate slowing down as his muscles felt like they were slowly constricting. When he opened his eyes he smiled darkly to himself.

Now back to being a tiny Salvarian Tree Frog Jensen had one goal on his mind and with a few practice hops he darted down the hall towards Kyla Orlouge’s room. With the added benefit of being a frog he would be able to move unseen into Sei’s daughter’s room without anyone being the wiser. He wanted to laugh, but kept himself silent as he hopped past the soup kitchen, hearing the deranged mutterings of the soup chef, who was a man that took particular pride in his soup so much he never actually let any of the Ixian Knight’s have any.

He crept underneath the stove, slammed his tongue into a fly that haphazardly moved around the air, munched on it for a brief second, then hopped out into the hall way. There he crawled in the shadows as Adolph, Ta’gas, and Hotouri all laughed, walking down the halls to the outside while the knight told stories of their travels. When they passed he jumped a few times down a t section of the cave, towards the direction he knew Kyla’s room would be in.

Normally the immortal got lost in these caves pretty regularly, but he made it a mental note to know where she was, just in case of an emergency, such as this. He moved and hopped up onto a potted plants branch, holding his breath as he saw Felicity turn around the corner. The mystic cat sniffed the air twice, growled lowly and turned her head left and right, but not seeing anything she moved onwards. Jensen was about to move down the hall when he heard footsteps, before long Aislinn marched around the corner with a stack of papers.

Waiting extra time to make sure nobody was going to interrupt him he bolted into action, laughing with glee as he turned down the hallway. Anita just walked into her room, twirling the gunblade she received in her hand with a simple smile before slamming her door shut.

His heart raced to be so close now. At night Sei had always, always found some way to know what the immortal was up to, and in kind planned. Sometimes Adolph would be guarding the hall, or Stephanie and him would have some insane mission to go buy ice cream for the entire Ixian Knights. Other times Sei would just be waiting, a knowing smile on his face as he clapped twice before pointing for Jensen to go the other way.

Yet this time, nobody could stop him. He moved to the front of her door, looked both ways, and with a deep breath he wiggled under the door crack. With bit of negotiation, he made it in. He saw Kyla’s sleeping form in the bed, moving softly under her sheets. The room was a tad bit messy, a few articles of clothing on the floor. He had noted he hopped right into the cup of her bra. With a dirty thought he stepped out, and concentrated everything on turning back into a human.

He kept the pain of transforming to himself, gritting his teeth before he changed, opening his eyes and realizing he was tall once more. He fixed his hair, didn’t mind he was naked (who needed clothes for what he was about to do?) and checked himself for any oddities of the transformation. Check. It was game time.

“Kyla, keep quiet, it‘s me, Jensen.” The immortal whispered, his heart racing at the thought of sleeping with his lord’s daughter. Oh how this would be a night to remember. He hated Sei, and liked Kyla a whole lot. This would be two fold in its glory. He noticed the girl shifting, but with a light giggle he knew she was thinking the same naughty thoughts he was.

“Make some room,” Jensen ordered in a husky voice. There was a slight pause as Jensen watched her, before she moved over making room for him, opening her blanket up to him. Jensen rubbed his hands together greedily as he chuckled slipping in under the sheets.

This is going to be the best night…ever! Jensen thought with a smile.

~*Several Minutes Later*~

Jensen opened the door to Kyla's room, a dour look on his somber face. He didn't even bother covering himself as he walked out into the cave hallways in a trance, like a stupefied zombie. He sauntered past a mouth gasping Anita, a shrill cry from Aislinn, and even Felicity was lost for words.

"I don't see the big deal..." Cassandra Remi muttered in passing as she dragged a screaming victim into her room, glancing one more time at the naked backside of the enigmatic immortal.

When he hit his room he opened the door wide, walking in shutting it with a soft thud sound that reverberated off the cavern walls. Stephanie looked up from the book she was reading looking at Jensen with a curious eye, her lips parting a bit in confusion. Jensen merely went to his dresser, grabbed a pair of sleeping shorts, and tossed them on turning to his bed and shifting the covers before slipping in. He kept his back to the woman as for once he said no words.

Hearing the shrieks from Aislinn Anita opened her door and the two daughters of Sei stepped out into the hall to hear the fuss. All they saw was Jensen walking away. Shortly after, Kyla's door opened and Sei Orlouge stepped out, a grin so wide it made Kyla's mouth gape open wide in disbelief, and Anita's orbs grow to the size of small bagels.

"Just curing Jensen of his Jungle Fever," Sei said without fanfare, turning to his room and walking with a spring in his step.

[Tainted Bushido]

Mood: Meh
Song: Endless Despair – Blazblue: Continuum Shift OST

Overall: You guys put together a fun little thread here. I often found the hijinks a bit over the top, but amusing in their own ways. Few times I did have to roll my eyes, but they were far enough between that I won’t penalize you guys…too much. As always I encourage you guys to come talk to me. To answer your question, yes, the thread was enjoyable.

Pulling out my judges notes…and a 1 2 3 here we go!

Story (21/30)

Continuity – 7 – I got a good feeling of character in your thread. I could tell they had a history and they came from events. I saw how some of those events affected how they act and feel. All in all you gave me a good tie in to the character and a hint of where they were going. This is good, especially when the thread it self has no continuity errors. What kept you from a perfect score is that you guys didn’t give me a lot to go off of. I could piece some parts of it, and I flat out knew, but I shouldn’t need to go looking for info. I’m not asking for war and peace, but a reader’s digest of important life changing events could help, if not overdone.

Setting – 7 – For the most part the setting was used brilliantly. My big problem was two fold.

1) The town seemed rushed, it was more of a formality than the tundra of the northern wastes.

2) Jensen should have really been hung by a mob a long time ago, especially if he’s slapping the butt of “hot tits sugarass” and killing knights. These people are the types others notice go missing.

You had a horrible beginning in the setting department but a strong finish in this category people. I encourage you to put as much effort in all your posts rather than just the meat of the story.

Pacing – 7 – I understood that the way the thread was presented set up many situations and split the party. That’s fine, and is a good thing, but you also lose momentum in doing so. While it artificially boosts tension, you also hurt the momentum of the thread as I have to shift gears to remember what’s going on. Hence the lack of a truly high score.

Character (18/30)

Persona – 7 – Oh boy was there a lot of character in this thread. What helps your score is that Jensen, who can be very bad in large doses is toned down by the other characters. You diluted the Jensen in the thread to tolerable levels, and made most characters shine. However, things that hurt was Anita’s actions in the thread were inconsistent I felt. As well as Rev’s actions being very shallow, I get he’s an angry guy, I get he has a right to be. What I don’t get is why he puts up with anyone trying to tell him what to do. Sei’s over the top hero feel also detracted in small ways. Being a telepath can backfire in small ways as you technically have a right to metagame. The problem becomes how you deal with that info, and regurgitating it for the reader’s makes it feel much like superman. “Hurp Durp, no secrets from good old Sei! Sei’s Awesome!”

Dialogue – 6 – So, here is where I have a little beef with Anita. At times she seems the responsible 18 year old she is supposed to be, and at others she’s 12. Sei, you seem to have problems remembering what age Anita really is. You need to commit to her personality. Either make her a spoiled brat or make her the responsible adult. Playing the back and forth only hurts Sei, especially since it’s so integral to his character. Having her actions tell me she is a responsible woman and then having her talk like a 12 year old is a dichotomy that confuses the hell out of me.

Jensen, what can I say? You definitely have Jensen down to a T but his dialogue is predictable to the point I could have probably written much the same with half the effort. I know you are taking strides to fix this problem as it isn’t nearly as prevalent as it was in your first threads. Keep it up.

Rev, you never quite got past grumpy old man with me. You seemed like the grumbling veteran who has to go out and tell the younger people to stop acting like idiots. This contrasts with the actions where you admit that you would be joining in on the harassment of Jensen in a heartbeat in any other circumstance. While I get he’s trying to be calm for Sei, you only hint once in the thread to the reason for that. I have only your word that Rev trusts Sei.

Show, don’t tell guys.

Action – 5 – Again the Anita problem, sorry it hit you everywhere. The dialogue didn’t sync with her actions which made Anita very Bi-polar. Once again Sei, you have to choose how you present her. If you want her to be a brat make her a brat. If you want her to be the responsible adult, make her so. Don’t make her be both.

Writing Style (18/30)

Mechanics – 6 – 47 mistakes I circled through the thread. Spread out over 43 pages this averages out to at least 1 per page. Most of these were in the beginning before you guys hit your stride though a few were evident. The bigger offenders were;

Revenant or revenant, choose now whether you capitalize that title or not. I don’t want to play guessing games about whether you’re referring to his title or the race he seems to portray.

Mystic or mystic, is it a race or is this a profession? I know the answer but all the lowercase mystics seemed off, especially where you were referring specifically to the race of Sei, and not to the enigma that surrounded a situation. Mystic is a proper name, and should be treated as such when you refer to the word as such.

EI for the love of gods TOO is the word you use to put emphasis on something. NOT TO! I think over 20 of these mistakes fall into this category alone.

Technique – 7 – You guys put effort into here. Few things of note;

Sei, you got better as time went on in the thread, but at the beginning you literally referred to Sei as ONLY Sei 11 times in the opening post. After the 6th Sei you finally used Mute, then went right back to Sei for five more “Sei”s. This gives your post a very repetitive feel, like I’ve already read something. This is decidedly a bad thing.

Awkward phrasings all around gentlemen, let me point out a few…


1) As she was about beat her shoulder the it wood again Jensen’s fingers nimble opened the doors and stuck his foot forwards.

2) He watched Sei escort the new guide out the door with Anita behind him like a faithful dog and William marching behind her like a sycophant ass kisser.

Just a note EI, that last part was redundant. A sycophant IS an ass kisser, so you don’t need to say it twice.


Sei's eyes widened at the dead on analysis. Apparently there was more to Lijom than met the eye. The mute nodded to confirm all that she had just said.

This. Is. Very. Choppy.


It was also enough to spend black veins of pain lancing through his flesh, brining all the pain that accompanied such things.

Not only is there something wrong in this sentence, but it feels repetitive and after reading this six times I STILL don’t know what you meant there.


Adolph was the only man who didn’t seem to mind that William stood up to Jensen, offering his canteen in a show of friendship.

Uh, way wrong word there bro. Makes this sentence take on a whole new meaning.


It was there, amid the bright light and the howling shrieks that William first saw him own charred form staring back at him.

Hopefully that says enough on its own. Your uses of imagery and allusion were good. You didn’t hit me over the head with the information of who Lijom really was. This helped you in this regard, but these awkward phrasings hurt you as well…

I’m stopping there, as this illustrates what I’m talking about. This also killed your clarity.

Clarity – 5 – Clarity took a dive as there were awkward or flat out horrible phrasings through the thread. I had to reread a few sentences to get through it with any semblance of understanding. Even then I had to abandon some projects. You guys are beyond read aloud to catch this stuff, and unfortunately I’m going to nail you here for it.

Wild Card – 8 – Good show people, like I said, good read. I’m just being harsh and critical because this is what you need. Some of you fell behind in the effort department and it showed…

Total – 65!

Silence Sei gets 3189 EXP and 250 GP!

Enigmatic Immortal gets 2217 EXP and 250 GP!

Revenant gets 1738 EXP and 250 GP!

All Ability Spoils approved pending RoG approval.

EXP based on the EXP Equation. GP was on a free wheel basis. All questions and comments can be directed to me through the normal channels! (PM or AIM SethDahlios)

[Silence Sei]

GP-Exp added.