Harlan moved his long cannon to the plains, 6 miles to the target, barely any elevation difference across them.

Harlan dialed in the right angle and rotation after watching the beast through a gate high above the ground.

It had circled back around after killing its prey and would remain stationary for at least a minute.

With the veils Harlan put up, the cannon was still loud, but it lessened them and redirected them backwards. The echo would eventually come back and the Razorwing might be spooked, but by Harlan’s estimation, the echo would take three minutes, and the shell would hit after 50 seconds.

Harlan’s heart was racing so fast he could feel the pounding in his ears.

He counted down with his fingers as he still watched from his gate.

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Boom.

Yet when the smoke cleared he saw nothing.

“Surely I didn’t vaporize-”

Harlan saw a glint a few hills over, the sun shining off the scales of the Razorwing.

He barely slipped through the gate before a wave of kinetic breath turned the massive weapon into nothing but shrapnel.

Had it a shorter turning radius, Harlan wouldn’t have had time for the second gate to actually get him out of the area.

He was livid, he wasted weeks of his life away from his family who could surely use some support on a weapon that didn’t even fucking work.

He wanted to drink, but he knew that it would empty out any tavern he tried to go in and what Xol made he drank already.

Harlan grumbled as he walked aimlessly down the road, trying to cool off before he went back home.

He made his way to the smells of food and barely looked up from the snow under his feet, not noticing that the town lacked guards.

When he stepped inside the tavern he found spears and swords pointed at him.

“I’d recommend that you put those down before someone gets hurt.”

An older man put his sword down and the rest followed.

“Are you the reinforcements? Did Herman get through?”

“I have no idea who that is or why you need reinforcements.”

“DAMNIT!”

The man flipped one of the tables.

“Whatever you have an issue with, I’m certain I can help.”

“You have any way to handle a dozen or more Werewolves?”

“I do. Stab me.”

The people were confused but one of them thrusted his spear at Harlan’s face.

The tip was deflected by his skin and not a scratch was left.

“I am Harlan Fomoria, I assume my reputation precedes me. Now, explain what is happening here.”

The older man sat across from Harlan and motioned for some food and drink to be brought over.

“Werewolves. We huddle here for safety, but if they were really trying we’d all be dead.

They come some nights for the women, some nights they don’t.”

“On full moons?”

“No, nobody can understand why they don’t appear.”

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry sir, I will try-”

“On full moons a Werewolf can sometimes lose control, but other nights they can transform at will and keep their minds, and then on moonless nights they can’t transform at all. If they are coming out when it isn’t a full moon, and taking captives, that means they are fully in control of themselves.”

“How bad is that?”

“I’m going to make a call, don’t bother me.”

Under the veil, Harlan contacted Carden, the leader of the Nightwatchers and a vampire elder.

“Hello?”

“It is Harlan.”

“Ah, what can I do for you?”

“Werewolves are taking people at night, not killing them on the spot. Is there any reason I shouldn’t track them down and wipe them out.”

“Are they losing control?”

“No, they don’t seem to have a set pattern of appearance according to the man I spoke with, and they don’t always come out on full moons.”

“This is most distressing. I wish there was an easy way to put you in contact with another leader, one nearby who could lend you some men.”

“I don’t even know where I am in all honesty. But I can find out.”

“Of course.”

Harlan lifted the veil.

“Where are we?”

“Uh, Staggerfell.”

“County?”

“Orelend.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“What’s-”

Harlan put the veil back up and called Carden back.

“Staggerfell, Orelend county.”

“Let me see. The nearest would be in Welin, but I would suggest Walin since it is larger, more experienced, and with gate travel time is the same either way.”

“What is it with this place and swapping Es and As.”

“Walin is about 30 miles at heading 228. They should follow without issue once you say your name, if not then call and I’ll have someone bring a letter of recommendation.”

“Thank you.”

Harlan dropped the veil once again.

“I’m going to bring back reinforcements.”

Harlan met up with the local coven leader and was given two men, a River Vampire and a Werewolf.

“Sir Fomoria. What can we help with?”

“Werewolves, taking people alive, not on full moons.”

“Shit.”

“I asked a vampire elder about it, but didn’t get an answer. Is there any reason I shouldn’t kill them all outright.”

“If they are taking people, they’ve broken the law, both of your nation and of our people.

The punishment for both is death.”

“Good.”

Harlan opened the gate back to Staggerfell and went into the tavern again.

“We are going to kill the Werewolves.”

“Men, gather up for-”

“Me and my men are going to kill them. You are going to stay here.”

“They took our women, mothers and daughters and wives and-”

“That was not a question, nor a suggestion. I’m not letting you get yourselves killed for pride.

Stay here, don’t do anything that would suggest that something has changed.”

An hour passed before they showed up.

Harlan had been outside, pretending to be a woman passed out drunk, having splashed some of the ale on himself to hide his naturally bizarre scent which came from being an amalgam.

He was glad it took so long for them to appear, since he felt some innate wrongness with taking a female form, and it had taken some time to get used to it.

He had actually laughed at first, turning into an inhuman monster was painful, but he got over the sense of wrongness rather quickly compared to being a woman.

Yet it also made him somewhat melancholy, he hadn’t felt right looking human at all for some time, a monster fit his skin better.

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He pretended to groggily wake up a little before falling back asleep to test their reaction, but they didn’t care and just held him tighter.

Once Harlan had been grabbed the Nightwatchers threw out their daggers.

“NIGHTWATCHER, KILL THEM.”

The one carrying Harlan fled, leaving the other two to hold back the Nightwatchers.

They were running for 30 or so minutes before they jumped down into a cave.

Harlan was handed over to another Werewolf and tossed into a cage with the women.

Once the guard moved away Harlan dropped the act and put up an illusion.

Harlan’s joints popped and his bones broke so they could be reformed.

He was already at his minimum height, and getting smaller meant he had to strain himself to keep that size.

Seeing as how he turned from a woman to a man instead of transforming into a Werewolf, the women didn’t do any more than just recoil at the display.

“I’m here to rescue you. Are any of you injured?”

“Dena is hurt.”

Harlan went over to the woman, it was a minor infection on a light bite mark from one of the Werewolves.

“Does this woman have a husband?”

“No.”

The woman furrowed her brow.

“Boyfriend, lover, just someone she sleeps with?”

“Why do you even want to-”

“She’s pregnant.”

Harlan began to check the women one after another, and either they were pregnant, or he expected they would be shortly.

“Is this everyone?”

“Cathandra, they took her shortly before you arrived.”

Harlan opened a gate.

“I will bring her back, all of you get back to Staggerfell.”

He stopped the women from stepping through just yet.

“But before that, I could… I could get rid of the pregnancies.”

Once the women were gone Harlan inhaled deeply and thought out his next move, though he knew it would need to happen quickly.

The guard returned when it heard banging on the gate, saying what Harlan could only intuit was a threat in Wolftongue.

When he got close enough, Harlan pushed the bars into him, pinning the wolf to the wall and nearly falling to pieces due to Harlan having roughly sharpened the bars.

As the beast tried to get himself unstuck from the wall, Harlan reached inside of his mouth, stabbing his clawed fingers through from the roof of his mouth and into his brain.

Harlan saw his eyes roll back into his and his eyelids flutter as he twitched and then went still, turning back into a man and sliding down the wall.

Harlan walked out into the cenote and saw the bonfire which lit up a stone table where the woman was being held down by three Werewolves, one held her hands while there were two others that held her legs open.

A larger white Werewolf reached into the fire, grabbing a burned up log and crushing it in his hands before rubbing a single line of black down his chest. The smell of burning was faint as the hot coals barely singed his tough fur.

Harlan crawled along the ceiling of the cenote, looking like some sort of lizardman with long claws, waiting for the right chance to pounce.

He was supposed to be waiting for his backup, but the beast walked closer to the table and took off his loincloth.

Harlan knew what would happen, and he would not allow it.

He deactivated his hover and dropped on top of the white wolf, sending his spine and organs shooting out of his backside as his eyes popped out of his skull.

For the two holding the woman’s legs Harlan had cut stalactites from the ceiling and sharpened their ends as much as he could in the short time he had.

One of them died outright, but the other got lucky, causing the stone to not land solid on his head and instead it slipped, crushing the woman’s leg, nearly severing it.

He leapt towards the last Werewolf at the table, tearing at its throat with needle-like teeth.

Deep cuts were left in the woman’s wrists where the Werewolf struggled against Harlan.

Before the others reached him Harlan slipped his armor onto the woman and tossed her up, hovering to let her stay in the air as Harlan prepared to fight.

Harlan hit the first with an uppercut, cleaving the snout off of one of them, but leaving it alive to wail in pain as it started to regenerate.

The next bit Harlan on his bicep, and with a flex the teeth were trapped, as he kept going he felt the teeth of the wolf crack and he tried to pry himself off of Harlan who plucked out an eye before letting him go.

Harlan began to imbibe, realizing that these Werewolves were far from weak, to even pierce his skin was a great effort for anything.

The next one that tried to bite found his teeth broken against Harlan’s onyx like scales.

Harlan used his hand like a spear and tore out the heart of the werewolf, the potent life inside of it burned as fuel for a blade which cut deeply into a few of them, but was not fatal.

They realized the fight was lost, and tried to run, but Harlan was faster.

Heused flight to drop with great force onto the back of the digitigrade legs of the one, sending bone splinters deep inside of the wolf’s calves and disabling its ability to run

Harlan finally drew his blade, the hook like a mantis cut the other from shoulder to hip, severing its spine.

The last begged and pleaded for her life.

“Why is it always the same? I go anywhere, and I stumble into some new horror.”

He scraped the blade across the ground.

“Spiders inside of the spines of people, forcing me to take innocent lives.”

He swung at the whimpering female, cutting off only hair.

“A simple bandit clean up, turning into a raid where I send a cloud hundreds of feet into the sky, and kill hundreds of evil men. But at least then I stopped it before the worst could happen.”

This time he took off a few fingers. When she tried to flee once more he made a small slice on her back, and her legs refused to listen anymore.

“Here I could not be fast enough, because I never planned to be here, I just fell into it.”

She returned to human form, naked as the day she had been born.

“Please, I’ll do anything, I just-”

Harlan grabbed her jaw, forcing it closed before he fused her teeth together.

“How many people pleaded just like you have. Women who you and yours held down, forced yourself on. And why the fuck is it always that? Why does every single thing go back to someone trying to fuck someone else? Every single sick bastard I meet is trying to stick his dick where it doesn’t belong.”

Harlan stepped back to one of the others, stomping his genitals into paste and causing the beast to pass out, foaming from the mouth.

“And that you would do that to other women, that is a special form of terrible, making you no better than any of them.”

Harlan dragged the female to the table, stone hands formed and grabbed her limbs.

He started pulling.

“Holy fucking shit, what the hell are you doing?”

“I was going to draw and quarter her.”

The Nightwatchers were horrified at the sight before them.

They were almost used to seeing this kind of brutality when a Werewolf lost control on a full moon, but from Harlan’s tone, he was mostly lucid.

“Why don’t you just put her down.”

Harlan cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow, as if he didn’t know what was being told to him.

“Hey, listen, I get it, some bad shit was happening here, you had to defend yourself.”

The vampire inched close to Harlan, his partner wanted to stay far away.

“But that is done, it’s over, we don’t need to be like them.”

Harlan took shallow breaths and formed a fist, his punch then broke the nose of the vampire.

“I AM NOTHING LIKE THEM, THEY ARE MONSTER, THEY STEAL WOMEN, IMPREGNATE THEM FOR SOME SICK FUCKING EXPERIMENT, I’M NOT LIKE THEM, AND THEY GOT EVERYTHING THAT THEY FUCKING DESERVED.”

Harlan moved the hands, tearing the woman apart, spilling her guts onto the stone table.

Instead of helping, the vampire just stabbed her in the heart with a dagger, ending her suffering.

“We want them for questioning, what you are doing is plainly unjust.”

Harlan slammed down his fist, sending cracks down the table and causing small rocks to fall from the ceiling. When he heard a metallic clang, he remembered why he was so upset in the first place.

“Go, there are a few more still breathing.”

Harlan called to his armor, and it floated down.

The woman had passed out, either from pain or blood loss, but the armor kept her stable, she was at no risk of dying.

Harlan saw a rock which had fallen, frozen in front of him.

“Fate. It is not real, there is no force which drives things towards an endpoint, there is no goal for reality.

Yet there are forces which from the outside seem exactly the same. You ask why it is always like this, why you stumble into these things. And I tell you, it is you.”

Harlan looked down at the woman, late 20s, early 30s, brown hair, blue eyes, plain looking.

She could’ve been any of a thousand women he had seen across cities and villages and farms.

She seemed so peaceful in her sleep, it was like nothing had happened at all.

“Why am I cursed, to go to these places, to see these things.”

“Because it is what you want.”

He looked at her with fury in his eyes.

“You say you hate it, all of it, but had you not come, who would save that woman?

The village which was cut off from the outside, whose remaining guards were only alive at the behest of these monsters?

The Nightwatchers who knew nothing of what was happening?

You made a random jump to escape the wyvern, and it brought you here, not because of fate, or a curse, but because you are my champion, and every power you develop is one outside of my design.

You can see the future of thousands, millions of people, across hundreds of miles, but you cannot see a single one knowingly, you are simply drawn to them. And so you subconsciously pull yourself to these places, these missions.”

“What is fate, what is a curse, if not an inability to make a choice.”

“You are always making a choice, that ability did not come from me, it manifested in your heart.

When you are ready, I will contact you for a mission, but it is nothing of an emergency.”

Time resumed, and Harlan decided to clean the woman, make sure she was healthy, that there wasn’t anything growing in her.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was a Werewolf, female.

“Sir Fomoria, you’ve done a great service for my people.”

“Who are you?”

“I am the Wolfmother, I sit on the seat of the Nightwatchers council. My name is not important, and it is likely you will meet more in my position who have cast aside their names. Carden reported to me what had happened here, and I have decided to come and verify.”

“Verify what?”

“That these dogs are beholden to the witch. There will be another blood moon in 9 months, give or take.

If these women are impregnated now, one or more of them is likely to give birth during the blood moon.

There has been more than one person who is born and then turned on the same blood moon, and they always get great power, sometimes even abilities that never manifest within another on record.”

Harlan breathed deeply, black smoke rose from his skin and the Wolfmother stepped back until it stopped.

“Were they?”

“It is unlikely. From what I recovered in the caves, they are trying to create a new creature by having the women impregnated by one in Werewolf form and then the woman would give birth on the blood moon before being turned into something else, either a Gargoyle or a Sirin. The ideal for them is to make something with the powers of more than one of us and eventually make what they consider a perfect being by mixing all of us into one.”

“Is there anything else?”

“We found women of the cult, Werewolves, who were supposed to stay in a constant transformed state for the entire term of their pregnancy. We’ve seen a few of these cults pop up, not all of them are run by Werewolves, but all of them are following some kinda prophecy that we can’t find the source for.”

“They have a name? Something I can call them before I drown them in their blood.”

“Cult of the Ancients. They believe we were all one people and were then split as divine punishment for something, but we’ve never gotten a clear answer on what they think happened.”

Harlan let the Nightwatchers check out the women of the village and they even offered counseling for them, but they didn’t trust them. So far as they were concerned the Nightwatchers were probably in on it, to them Harlan was at least human, or close enough.

“Thank you so much for everything you’ve done.”

Harlan couldn’t meet the eyes of the villages as he opened another gate and left.

He didn’t really feel guilty for having killed them, even the woman who begged for her life.

He felt guilty that he now knew he had this power, that he was drawn to these places, but he always showed up too late to stop things anyway.