Fighting the elk was a bad idea. His newfound mana reserves had given confidence as he exited, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Leaving the ‘maze’, Leto came across his old adversary almost immediately. Except, it looked nothing like it had two weeks ago.
The elk was several feet taller and longer, with chitinous plating poking through its skin. Bone spurs jutted from its joints and along its spine, accompanying the sharp talons that its hooves had become. The tangle of antlers had grown further, wrapping around its head and digging into the flesh. The rage though, the rage was the same.
When he exited the maze, the elk had been asleep, its legs kicking and a growling echoing from its nostrils. The trees around the area had been destroyed and there were little piles of blood and bone around the clearing, evidence of more murdered critters. Somewhere in his brain, he thought that this was the perfect time to strike, while it slept. But that didn't matter. He was not quiet enough or perhaps it smelled him in the air, because when he stepped within a few feet of it, it was roused from its fitful sleep. The eyes came open, and there he saw its anger and insanity, not doused by the weeks it had waited for him in the slightest. A thrumming filled the air and Leto could feel mana pouring off its body in waves.
“Oh shit.” was all he could manage before the area around the elk exploded with force, flinging Leto across the clearing. His increased strength had deluded him, of course the elk had grown in their time apart. It was a foolish move that would get him killed if he didn’t move quickly.
Activating Swiftstep in midair, he rolled with the momentum as he hit the ground and came to his feet. As the elk struggled to its feet, Leto was already gone, adrenaline and fear pushing him into the woods and away from his predator. Angry bellows rang out behind him, only pushing him faster. But this was not to be a short chase. It had waited weeks for him and it wasn’t going to let him go that easily.
Through the night he ran, flaring Swiftstep the whole time. He was fast, but the elk was no chump either. Every ten minutes or so it got close enough to swing at him and he was forced to take evasive movements. Over the night they had moved slowly west and north, cutting a dizzying path across the Umpqua National Forest.
Over time, the fear in Leto faded and a strange calm came over him. As he ran, he felt the flow of mana through his body. The skill activated in his core, and the mana washed out in waves across him. Studying it, he found that the skill was wildly inefficient. The mana was just reinforcing him pushing mana over his whole body and allowing him to react quicker and his body to keep up. He was losing about 50% of the mana that the skill required as it went unused in parts of his body and leaking out.
‘How can I fix this?’ he asked himself. Feeling how his body reacted every time he dodged a strike or changed direction, he came to a conclusion. The skill needed to work in two parts. The first, was that his brain had to react accordingly to his situation and send the signal to his body. The second was that his body had to have the physical capability to respond to his brain signals. So mana had to reach his brain and the rest of his body in equal amounts. While the constant waves of indiscriminate mana accomplished this, it did so inefficiently. The mana was unable to be exactly where it needed to be and leakage would occur when it tried to reinforce parts that were already reinforced and did not need more. How would he accomplish this?
‘Blood!’ he internally exclaimed. Mana needed to efficiently travel all the way through his body, so why not use the most efficient system his body had. Leto focused on the skill, drawing some of the mana away from each wave that ran across his body and redirected it to his heart.
It was a slow process, but with each wave, he brought more and more mana to his heart. As his heart beat, the mana attached itself to his blood and began to flow through his veins. It was cold at first, like an IV dripping down your arm. After about thirty minutes, the skill no longer produced waves, but a steady stream to his heart. With each heartbeat, another wave flowed through him, entering his brain, his muscles, his tendons and ligaments. His body was connected in a web of mana.
When the last wave from the skill vanished and his heart began to beat as the source, his speed jumped up about half again as fast as he was before. Every bit of mana was being used where it was needed, and if it wasn’t it moved right along his veins and onto the next part of his body. There was no mana leakage, and he felt the draw on his mana pool lessen. Within his core, Swiftstep vibrated as it shifted its structure slightly to better run itself without his intervention.
With his new burst of speed, he turned directly north toward a small mountain in the distance. He intended to outrun this elk if he could. If not, he hoped that traversing the mountain would be too difficult for it.
It took him less than an hour to reach the summit of the mountain. The draw from Swiftstep had increased a lot as he ran and climbed, but it was worth it. Looking back, the elk huffed with every step, barely able to keep up. It hadn’t been close enough to swipe at him for ten minutes, but it kept trying. A grin crept onto Leto’s face, some thin joy that his plan was working. Turning back to his path up, Leto took a jump from one rock to another, trying to catch it and pull himself up. When his hand touched the stone though, a sharp pain ripped through his brain. His hold body recoiled and he dropped to the ground, body twisting in agony. For a moment Leto thought he had been struck. But bringing a hand to his head, he felt no blood, no wound or welt of any kind.
He pulled himself to his feet, turning in a slow circle to see if he could see his old or his new enemy. The elk wasn’t in his line of sight, but he could hear it panting a few yards away. Another spike of pain erupted in his head, and he recognized it as a purely internal pain. It was awful and faded quickly, however another was right behind it. The third faded just as fast but the next came on faster. The pain mounted, not even a second between each one. Only when it synced with his heartbeat did he realize it was his skill tearing him apart. Pulling mana away from Swiftstep, the stabbing calmed down, but pain was still there. It radiated through him, touching every inch of his body, his veins and arteries felt like they were stretching apart.
Leto had lost focus on his surroundings and barely noticed when the elk pulled itself into the little path that Leto had fallen into. Each step thrummed with mana, empowering the beast. Leto struggled away, pulling himself hand over fist as far as he could.
‘Please.’ he begged silently, ‘I have to make it. Please help me, someone, anyone.’ His nails ripped apart as he scratched stone and dirt, blood rushing through his fingers. He looked off into the east, the sun rising over the horizon. Tears ran down his face, fear and pain and the light blinding him pulled them from his eyes. The light on the horizon flared, a dull orange became a hot yellow and then a blazing white. He was forced to put a hand across his eyes, and heard a bellow of pain from the elk behind him as the sun grew brighter. Through the cracks of his fingers, he saw a shape in the light, and heard a bird shriek. Wind rushed over him and the light came closer. The elk screamed in agony and ran, talons pounding across the stone as it fled this new opponent. The light passed over him and he was blinded. Shutting his eyes, the light still shone through the lids for a moment. The light faded, but was still bright, similar to his pain before.
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Leto blinked several times, clearing the tears and blindness from his vision. Upon one the rocks near him stood a magnificent bird, a huge heron. Standing over eight feet tall, its legs and beak were long and ruby red. Most of its plumage was an ash gray, with orange feathers on its chest and across its long neck and head. Patterns of black shifted across the feathers, lines of hieroglyphs moving in bands around its body. A copper collar of sorts was wrapped around its neck, regal and carefully engraved with hieroglyphs that gave off a dull glow.
The heron approached Leto and he flinched away. It stopped in place, its head cocking to one side. It stayed like that for a moment, before a thrum of mana stretched from the heron to Leto. Ruler’s Might flexed instinctively, drawing new pain to his body. He tried to deflect the creature’s skill, but it calmly burrowed through and caressed his mind.
The thing before him was the Bennu, and it had come for him. Visions of flying over deserts and a river delta flashed through his mind. In these memories, the Bennu glowed with an inner fire, its plumage different shades of red and yellow. It landed upon a large step pyramid at the head of a city. At the peak of the pyramid sat a small group, a few guards, a young child in a bed, and a man in a large red and white crown. A Pschent, the memories supplied, the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Bennu had come when called to do its duty. It would either heal this sick child, or it would help carry the child’s soul to the halls of the afterlife. The pharaoh stood, and bowed to the Bennu, making way for the bird to approach his son.
A few steps of its long legs took it to the child’s bedside, talons clinking against the stone. The child could not have been more than ten years old and was deathly pale. A sheen of sweat covered his face and every few breathes he would twist in pain. At that moment, the Bennu knew that it would not be able to heal the child, but it would try. It opened its beak, and a wave of heated mana flowed over the boy. It glowed a dull red, and wrapped itself around him before slowly sinking into each and every pore.
The child took a deep breath, a small smile replacing the grimace of pain his face had been twisted in before. Color returned to his cheeks for a moment, before exhaling, and life left him. The Bennu bent his beak down to grasp the child’s soul in his beak, and turned away. Two heavy beats of his wings brought him to the air and he soared again, following the river before shimmering and disappearing into the afterlife.
Leto came to, the Bennu now resting on his chest. He understood now why he had come for him, and lay back to let the Bennu do its work. It had not been able to save that child when it was a young version of itself, when it had much heat of life left to give. He would heal Leto, and the act would push it into the next stage of its life. Leto understood now that this was the Bennu, the Egyptian version of the Phoenix.
Its ash gray wings glowed with a heat they had not had in centuries, ash and coal relighting in its internal furnace. Its feathears rippled with heat turning red, then orange, then yellow before bursting into flame. The whole bird glowed with the brilliance of a star, white hot. The heat moved, sinking into Leto and sliding along his veins. He could feel it repairing the damage and reinforcing his body. The leftover heat sunk into his core and filled his mana pool. Slowly, the flame dimmed and left behind a pile of ash on Leto’s chest. He lay there in silence for several moments, feeling the throbbing disappear like a distant memory. Breathing in and out, he could feel the warmth left by the Bennu, now becoming his. A strand of it reached out from his mana pool and attached itself to the ash pile. It pulled at his mana, not insistently but like it was asking permission. Leto acquiesced and helped the strand pull mana into the ash.
It nearly drained him dry, but the ash was glowing again with heat and mana. Pushing from the gray, a small Bennu emerged, red as an ember. Stretching its legs, it walked up his chest and put its forehead to Leto’s. He could feel the relief of the bird, and a thanks for helping it come into the world. A connection ran between them, and Leto knew he was bonded to this bird. He sat up, cradling the baby heron in his hands. The remaining ash remained on his now bare chest, the reincarnation of the Bennu having burnt his shirt away. It burned again for a moment, the ash swirling into a symbol. Trying to brush it away he found that it had fused with his skin, leaving a tattoo on his chest. A black ankh about the size of his hand sat just above his solar plexus, with two wings with gold and red plumage stretching across his chest.
“Dad is going to kick my ass when he sees this.” was all he could think to say. The Bennu chirped while it rustled in his hands and could feel amusement thrum along. Leto felt the connection pull at him through his core, and decided that he should take a look at what bonding with the Bennu had changed about him. Centering himself, he took a few deep breaths and let his consciousness drift into my soul.
Every time he had been here before it had been sort of monochromatic. Now, with the infusion of the Bennu mana, the color switch had been thrown on and a new clarity lit his soul. His mana pool was a rich swirl of colors, a molten gold, a rich red, a shimmering white. The gold and white felt like his own mana, unlike the red which was quite hot and felt identical to what the Bennu had given off. Willing himself through the mana, he arrived at where he held his skills. They were circling each other like a series of orbiting celestial bodies, flowing in an intricate dance, a pattern that Leto couldn’t quite see.
He shook himself from the small trance he had gone into watching them, and willed Swiftstep to come to him. The skill orb swooped from the dance and landed in front of him. Feeling the structure, he could recognize the changes he had made to it to be more focused. There was a third part of the skill he hadn’t felt while on the outside though, and it had something to do with the nature of the skill itself. The physical manifestations in his body were to allow him to respond to the skill properly, but it seemed like the skill had a kernel of prescience that allowed him to know exactly how and where to step to know how to move.
Fascinating. He was excited to see what exactly the skill could become in the future if that kernel was allowed to grow. Ushering it back into rotation, he noticed that Infernal Vitality was glowing red hot and had several strands of red mana spinning around it. He brought it to his hands to study the skill and could feel the warmth of the Bennu in it. A chirp to his side drew his attention, and he noticed a small ball of fire with wings floating at his side. Feeling the connection with the Bennu, he realized this was how their connection manifested. It curled around the skill and urged him to rebuild it. Focusing on the skill, he felt a twinge of judgment from the Bennu when it came across the rage aspect of the skill, but it understood. It had connected to Leto’s mind and could feel the need for rage. Rage at the world, at the magic that had changed his life, it was important.
‘For now’ The Bennu seemed to say as it chirped and helped infuse its power into the skill. With both of their focus, the skill grew and grew until it was almost three times the size it had been. With a sudden pop, the skill produced three orbiting moons to its body. The first felt like…Solar Charge. It seemed like it would allow him to use the sun's rays to replenish his skill and reduce the mana cost. The second felt like…Radiance. He could push the skill out of his body to have an aura of healing. The last one was the smallest of the three, but it was no weaker than the other two. In fact, it was small because it felt heavily condensed. It felt like…Sunburst. He could charge the skill over time, and use it to instantly heal most wounds or cleanse himself of poison. But he could not use it unless it was fully charged.
Finishing the final subskill, Leto’s mana pool was very low. He pulled himself from his core and breathed deep. It was a new dawn, and for the first time in a while he felt hope. His fingers brushed along the baby Bennu’s feathers and it shivered with pleasure, a wave of blue and purple flames followed his touch.
“Do you have a name I can call you?” He asked. Across their connection he felt hesitation, and then a brief series of emotions. It seemed to say, before yes, now I am different.
“Would you like me to give you one?” An immediate yes came across the connection. He laughed and stroked the bird again. The fire came again and Leto remembered the northern lights he had seen while on a trip to Alaska several years earlier.
“Okay, I’ve got it. You will be Aurora.”
Aurora flexed their wings and cried out, a shrill call echoing over the mountain.