Jackson's POV

"No scent!" Adam's frustrated wolf smacks the torn rock path from the palace.

"Percy! Nimue!" Arthur yells out further down.

"Wait..." Athena speeds up as if noticing something. Turning down the hill, directing us with a single hand.

We gather around a hole deep in a wall, the space outside emanating with a dark haze that's clearly originating from deeper inside. "Percy...?" She pokes her head into the wide hole as I follow her behaviour.

"I can hear it" I call out, focusing on only the sound coming out of the dark space.

"Hear what?" She questions

"Heartbeats...three of them, down there" I point. Almost if on cue, a gold and violet set of eyes peer back at us from the floor deeper within the carved tomb.

"Percy?" Adam speaks, grabbing his attention.

"Stop her" His distorted voice voice calls to us, clawing his way out.

"We-"

He interrupts her, "Nimue's just confused!" He yells, shaking the space he created.

"Stand down!" He screams as if arguing with himself.

The dark tendrils that leak from the hole cause us to back up as they spike in size suddenly, his eyes getting ever closer to us. "...Percy?" Adam backs up alongside us, standing tall but putting on a guise of confidence.

His appearance, a shadowed out form of what we can only describe as a Lycan...except it's not. "What happened to Nimue?" Arthur asks him, staring up at the large figure.

His wolfish body almost half constructed to be that of a Lycan except the transformation clearly isn't completing itself for some reason. "Sto-" He tries to speak, instead grabbing his head in frustration. The thudding of the heartbeats sound out again, he stumbles a bit while trying to walk away from us.

"Percy!" Adam yells for him.

"Crest!" Athena calls similarly, causing the body to slow down a bit. But not enough.

It's neither one of them. I can feel him scratching at the surface, unable to truly come out for the unknown reasons of this binding. "Fenrir!" I scream, causing the giant to pause with a large thud. The Underworld itself emanates an eerie sound with crystals from the ceiling crashing down just beside him.

His head turns, dilating his eyes and focusing on solely me. "Now that face...I have not seen for quite some time." He tries approaching me but Athena and Adam stand guard of me as he leans downward.

"Relax" I quiet their growling as he looks down at them, not giving the slightest bit of interest.

"You dare threaten me with such form? Shift!" He , wit practically spitting as Adam forcibly shifts back into his human state. "I-" Fenrir drops to a knee, holding his heart with a growing pain.

I hear it again...the beating of their hearts, so out of sync and yet from the same point in their body. A white glow fills my hands as I unknowingly raise them in front of me. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" He howls out with a deep bellow, stumbling back to the floor.

I look down at the face of a being that struck fear throughout all of reality, now staring back at me with nothing more than one begging for mercy. "Why? Wouldn't it help you become...you?" I take a step forward, passing Athena and Adam as they look at me cautiously.

He doesn't answer, beckoning me to approach another step. "Stop" Irene places her hand on my chest.

"And why's that?" I question her.

"You of all people need help into seeing the truth?" She steps to the side, almost welcoming me to touch him now. "Just remember that you can't do this anymore".

"Do what?"

"This, Jackson" She points to the whole of me, forcing me to recall my true nature. And she's right, I can't keep using myself like this.

I lean closer, allowing a few sparks to alight against his shadowed leg and causing him to flinch back with a snarl. "I'm not in fear of you, child!" He kicks the flooring with dirt and rock, pushing himself slightly from me.

"Then what are you afraid of?" I stand back up, lifting my hands away from his glaring sight.

His heterochromatic eyes watch me with a single lined pupil, "I realised it in the room with The Spirit. If I was able to do it...then there's no doubt she was able to. That woman...the one who showed us how it all worked...creating the very definition of how it all worked." He wavers, clearly in pain as he speaks. "I'm the original wolf...a god, in the body of a deformed Lycan, sharing the consciousness of a human and his pet. It's unlike any reincarnation I've lived through...it's like I'm preserving myself...like I'm already dead." He looks down at his ankle that I almost touched, "I'm not sure what the truth is...I'm not sure what you'd do to this body. And I do not want to find out."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Athena laughs, approaching him with a smug smile. "Is this the mighty god asking us for help?"

"I DON-" His figure shakes violently, bursting blood from his ankles as he drops back down as if unable to sustain his own weight. "PERCY!" He howls out, calling the dark haze back into his body with a grotesque croak to his voice.

"Go...find Nimue." Percy whispers out, losing the light in his eyes as he passes out pointing towards the portal.

"I'll go on ahead and try to find her with Arthur" I alert them, stepping past Percy.

Adam quickly slides his arms under him, "We'll take him to the pack house, as much blood as this is, he shouldn't struggle healing...he's been through worse" He looks down, almost trying to convince himself it's okay.

We go to run towards the portal, noticing Athena's concerned face only getting more worried the further she gets from the palace. "What's wrong?" I quickly ask.

"Chris is still there..." She looks back at the large structure in the distance, seeming unsure.

"It's your choice, Anubis already told us he's just mentally drained though" I reassure her, seeing her fist tighten as she makes a choice.

"Let's go" She heads through first, stumbling as her foot gets stuck in the crack just outside of it. "What!?" She rips her shoe out of it. "Why's this here?" She looks at it with a waning need for precaution.

"Maybe when Chris stepped through?" I ask.

Adam looks down at it, "It wasn't here when we lifted him back into the Underworld, meaning it happened sometime after"

"So when Nimue went through?" Arthur comments, looking at the growing crack that's cutting through the ground with a growing pace. Cracking like pressured glass, gradually making its way under the pack house.

"We'll worry about it later, let me just put him somewhere safe." Adam hushes himself inside. Pausing the moment he steps a foot inside after glancing at the sliced interior.

"Nimue..." Athena hums out, sliding her hand down the cut wooden walls, flooring and doorways.

"Alpha!" A pack member runs out of the doors, "Where have you been?"

"Busy, where's Alex?" Adam quickly turns the question onto her.

"I-uh, I'm not sure. He was patrolling outside, supposedly waiting for Yasmine and Ryan I believe?" She stutters, unable to keep up with his pace as he races to his grand bedroom, kicking it open and placing Percy down.

"I'll be back" He whispers, kissing his head before placing the covers over him.

"Did you see anyone else? Like who caused this?" Athena continues looking at the scratches that reached the upper level through the flooring.

"The human with black hair...Nimue?" She was running through here as Yasmine and Ryan were trying to help her or something.

"Do you know where she went!?" Arthur asks with immediacy.

"I-...her home? I don't know, I'm sorry" She puts her head down for some reason.

"It's okay, you've helped plenty." Adam smiles at her, causing her to smile back and lift her head.

"Good luck Alpha!" She waves as we hurry down the steps and towards whatever trail we have of Nimue.

We burst through the doors just as Arthur stops us, "Guys..." He looks directly down at the floor as the crack runs through his legs from under the pack house.

Adam goes in to touch it but backs away with hesitation, "It's growing way too fast to be normal...what has she done?" his eyes glow a little bit before looking back at the direction of the village, clearly making Arthur anxious for his sister.

-

Chris' POV

The emerald eyed man stares back at me, pointing the edge of his sword towards me, "That woman, she learned much...too much...too quick. It was almost like she was birthed into this world with previous knowledge of some kind." He points it down as a white crack attempts to pierce through his chest. "She used the spirits to curse them all, erasing what existence she left on the world from those who do retain memories of her. Unfortunately for her, from the lives I took that day, none stained my blade other than her own." He gestures towards the sword in my hand, encouraging me to look.

The volcanic background of the primordial land flashes as a giant shadow emerges from the back, "The Beast, Fenrir."

Another flash practically blinds me, "The Storm...Oracion." He steps forward, almost shamefully. And the human..." The woman who slithered her way into the hearts of others, manipulating the world and attempting to swallow it whole. The Serpent, Morgan Le Fay." He stands still, dazed out as if reliving something from his past.

"So what good does telling me this do?" I ask with confusion.

He shakes his head, not understanding himself. "I don't know, I'm nothing more than a memory created from the blood on that sword. If I'm here...if you're here. Then Saint wanted you to see something, relive something that I myself went through in order to create a bond."

He lowers himself into the ground like an animal, only to raise his body back up with a laugh. Staring at his hands with a smile whipped across his face. "I'd almost forgotten what this body felt like." He grabs his sword, causing tingles of electricity to run through my hairs before tossing it like a javelin directly at my stomach.

My immediate instinct to slide out of the way but something fuels my hand, urging me to deflect it as an image of pure carnage flashes through my mind, a field of bodies...crushed, torn and eaten. Just as I take my eyes off the flipping blade, I look back at him to notice nothing but a hollow silhouette. His quick grunt from the sky slashes me from the neck to my thigh. Something scared me in that moment...it wasn't the pain or the fear of death, it was the lack of pain I felt in that moment.

He turns his back to me, "I'm unsure of why Saint picked this memory in particular. He's been there for most of it. Almost all of it. And I'm sure he'd know that even in this human state, you cannot win against me Christopher." He turns, slightly wide eyed as my body heals instantaneously in front of him.

His eyes gain a reflective tint before picking his offensive stance back up, "You poor thing." He elegantly swipes with each stroke of his arm as I raise my own blade in defence, each impact shaking all the bones in my body until it becomes unbearable. "Look at you dancing for survival" He mocks before swiping at my legs, cutting into my feet and forcing me to plant myself onto the scolding hot rock floor.

"You've always been a creature, so why don't you fight like one? You used to call yourself a wolf, didn't you?" He stabs me through the chest, cracking my ribs and slowly but surely reaching my heart with his cold branded steel. Lowering himself to whisper in my ear, "For a semi-immortal beast with a weapon, you fight like nothing more than a mortal human...a sane human. Something full of doubts and worries, why is that?." I feel a crunch shock through my body as he pierces my heart, my arms reach for him with a weakened motion, a poor man's attempt at fighting for his life considering I'm already fading into darkness.

"You're not leaving here a human." His words sting throughout my chest more than the removal of the blade...but why?