The Night Of The Wolf
| Fanfic Info | |
| Title | The Night Of The Wolf |
| Genres | Drama, Action |
| Author | TwiceBorn |
| Timeline | Shortly after Risa Schroedinger's disappearance |
| Canonicity Status | Non-canon |
| Completion Status | One-shot |
The Night of the Wolf
I am a predator. I am a hunter. I track my prey and kill it, with fury and claw and fang.
There are days when I run with the rest of my squad and bring down abominations—Witches that feed upon the innocent, creatures of grief and despair that must be put down. These, we follow into their nightmares and slaughter. Like wolves hunting bear, we chase the Witches, nipping at their heels and supping their blood until it is surrounded, wounded, until we leap upon it and tear it to pieces with our blades, our guns, our hands and teeth. Bringing down such large prey...that is what we were made for. That is what we are known for. They do not call us in the Sixth the Monster Hunters for nothing.
But today, I do not run with my pack. Today’s prey is different. I hunt not an abomination in form, but an abomination in mind and heart; not a Witch, but a traitor. This night, I will wet my axe with the blood of oath-breakers and back-stabbers, not sisters and friends who succumbed to their inner darkness.
...
Yes. There. A twinge in my senses. Scent of my prey sends my blood singing and my mind afire with hunt-lust.
The traitor thinks it can evade my grasp. That the sun-scorched wastes of the Outback will hide it.
It will know the truth of its delusions when my axe splits open her ribcage and crushes her Soul Gem to powder, and leaves her carcass for the animals to eat.
-
The betrayer is all too easy to find. It is loud, clumsy, leaving a wake even a child could track, and in its panic it flees into a canyon from which there is no escape. Fear makes it careless, and fear spices its scent as I lope after it, the sun at my back and the Outback’s sands under my feet.
It comes to a halt. I do not see this, but rather hear it, hear its shoes coming to a grinding halt on bare rock. Unsteady footsteps—it is likely turning around, this way and that, desperate to find a path to salvation before I am upon it.
No such luck for the traitor.
I break into a run. A howl flies from my lips as I bear down on it. I leap, tackling my prey before it can swing its weapon, and its cry of alarm becomes a wheeze as I land on it and force the wind from its lungs. The traitor’s weapon is hampered—a sword, an axe, a hammer, I pay it no heed, it hardly matters—no leverage available to bring it about for a proper blow. The prey struggles, and in an instant I know I am the stronger. I waste no time in tearing it apart.
Cries turn into screams. Screams turn into gurgles as blood fills its torn throat. The weak blows it hurls at me are hardly worth notice, even as desperation and terror gives them strength. Soon, the prey is nothing but a red stain on the canyon rocks, and with a hand shaking with the rush of adrenaline I pluck the precious gem of life from the mass of gore and hold it up into the light.
A glint of...silver? Or is it a pale blue? Uncertain—the coat of blood and the rush of adrenaline in my veins obscures the true color. No matter. I gaze at my battle prize for a moment more before crushing it in my fist. Like a glass bauble, it shatters easily. The shards cut into my hands, and the sting of that pain fills me with primal delight.
Hrngh...yes. A good kill. Messy, but then, no one ever accused the Hunters of being fastidious.
-
Another traitor to kill, another chance to hunt.
This one had managed to flee far into the desert. It hopes to lose me among the dust-swept rocks and endless sands, that the biting cold and searing winds will hide it from me. Like its sister in treachery before it, it thinks wrong.
I sink my feet into the soft flesh of the Outback as I lope across it, alone save for my thoughts and the cloying scent of the prey ahead. The full moon, the endless swathing dark, the boundless emptiness of the wastes...I am reminded of home.
The tundras that seemed to stretch on into eternity...
The quiet stillness and peace of isolation..
The fury of the elements seeking to flay the flesh from my body...
Even the soft sand brings forth thoughts of snow, the sound of crunching rocks reminding me of the ice-encrusted earth of...
Of...
...hrngh. The name. The name of home. I can’t remember it and I don’t know why. Perhaps thoughts of the hunt are distracting me.
No matter. The time for murder-make is nigh.
-
This one falls just like the other, and I have laid out its body for the wild beasts.
It had struggled before it died. Not quietly, like the one before it, but with cunning and ferocity. By the time I had its flesh in my claws, it was ready, and it carved a furrow in my meat and bone by the time I tore the pretty head from its shoulders.
I crush its Soul Gem, too, and let the warm pleasure of the kill wash over me again.
The others in my pack found this habit of mine disturbing. Unseemly. Even the Great Sage once expressed “concern” over how much I enjoyed the hunt.
How droll. What are we for, if not to track down the enemies of mankind and kill them? What else is there in life, but the thrill of the chase, the wind in your hair, the warm blood of a fresh kill on your skin? The Genocide That Laughs knew this, and though her star burned only briefly, it shone the brightest among any.
Would that she was still Warmaster, and not the soft-hearted little pup we have now.
...
More traitors in the distance. Several, from the sound and smell of it—an entire pack of them.
Good. More hunting.
-
It is the way of nature: prey becomes predator, and predator becomes prey.
They had lured me into an ambush, as one would flush deer into a trap. Five of them, armed with spears and swords and all other manner of weaponry. Perhaps the other traitors had warned them of my coming?
They moved with purpose, with unity. That caught me by surprise, and surprise opened a chink in my defenses, allowed a blade to slip through and sorely wound me. They drew my blood, though not before I drew theirs. No doubt that one is still cursing my name as it tends to its arm stump. Even now I can still taste its blood dripping from my fangs.
Victory is theirs, though—for now. I had retreated, seeking succor in the cold, bleached wastes of the Outback. From there I will lose them, circle back, ambush my would-be hunters, lay them out on the white snow where they may sleep forever. I stride further into the wilderness, fighting against numbing wind and crushing ice beneath my feet, until I come upon a glacier that I make into my hunting ground—
…ice? Cold? Something seems strange, but I do not know why. Strange feelings run amok in my head. Feelings of home. Feelings of longing. I try and make sense of things, but all is hazy and unclear, as though the foggy blizzard around me had invaded my mind.
No matter. Irrelevant details. Irrelevant emotions. There is only the hunt now, and my prey is upon me.
-
I feel the sting of their attack, but this time the advantage is mine.
Our battle begins when I burst forth from a snowdrift and drag one of them down, clawing and mauling as I wrench the betrayer into the soft ground. I leave it screaming, unable to fight, blood steaming in the winter air and weeping for help, and without pause I leap to the next. That one was better readied as it raised a pair of armored fists, trying to block my blows. My claws, razor sharp and capable of rending steel as easily as flesh, batter the armored hands aside. My fangs, iron-hard and capable of crushing stone, bite down and rip open the face behind the broken defenses. Yet another cry of agony shatters the air.
Suddenly, an abrupt, unwelcome sensation of cold. Not on my skin, not from the cold winter winds, but from a sword skewering me, erupting from my side. Blood streams from my wound and pain renders my movements become more sluggish as I try and whip around, face my attacker head-on.
Yes...yes. My body slows, but my mind is aflame. Not with joy, nor with rage—something much more primal. A deeper, more fundamental sense of sublime apprehension. This is what I live for: to run with my packmates under the pale moon; to track and find and kill prey, as mankind was meant to do thousands of years ago; to hurl myself into the fury of combat, giving wounds and taking wounds in equal measure.
To dance in that razor-thin space between life and death.
My foe does not share my passion—its eyes are steeled with cold determination and are bereft of any joy. It is cursing about its lost weapon, for it had left it buried in my flesh. I try and end its frustrations by lurching forward and sinking my jaws into its body. Its flinch, however, ensures that I merely sink my fangs into its shoulder, rather than the throat as I had intended.
I am unable to even tear out the shoulder meat before the rest are upon me. Spears, knives, axes burrow into me, pulp my insides and break my bones. Even as I silently scream for my body to move, my strength leaves me and my body goes numb. I fall to the snow, silent, still, lifeless.
A part of me is incensed that I am about to die. Death, at the hands of traitors, when there are still so many other hunts left to enjoy...I do not embrace it easily. But nor do I beg to the end to come sooner.
My time is ended. That is all. Such is the doom for all mankind, Magical Girls or no.
I close my eyes, letting the bliss of oblivion take me. One of the traitors begins to speak. I try and shut out the babbling—no doubt some last insult or boast to celebrate its victory over me.
I fail when I hear something...something familiar.
What is it? What is that word? Memory stirs inside me as my life fluids seep out into the white snow of the Outback. That word, “Hilda”...yes. My name. That is my name. It feels at once distant yet familiar, though I do not know why.
“...it’s our fault,” mutters the traitor. Its words are clear now, and they are burdened with sorrow and regret. “We should’ve been keeping track of your Soul Gem. We...we never really were friends, I guess, but you were part of our squad, dammit. We should’ve been watching.”
More babbling. I open my eyes to look into the eyes of my conqueror, so I can heap scorn upon her for wasting my last seconds in this mortal realm with nonsense. I strain my neck up and see—
Ellis? Ellis? What is she doing here? Maria, too, and Joan—still nursing her shoulder after I bit into it. My squadmates. My pack. Had they, too, turned traitor?
Ellis swallows, the loud click of her trachea audible even over the howling wind. She raises her spear to deal me a finishing blow. “It’s our fault you’re a Witch now, Hilda...so we’re gonna make things right.”
What.
No. None of this makes sense. None of this makes any sense.
I glance down at my hands and see that they are elongated, exaggerated to nightmarish proportions, covered in a black, scrawling mess. It takes me half a heartbeat to realize that the black mass is something akin to fur, if a child had drawn a version of it that sprang forth from his deepest terrors. And by looking down at my hands I notice my new pointed snout. A snout just like...
...just like a beast’s.
I am no longer human.
Ellis, wait, it’s me. It’s me, Hilda. Ellis, Ellis please—
“I’m sorry.”
-
