Manacraven Alpha – Delta Zone #3 Level 80 - 99

The thing that had become of the once shy and unfortunate Inuit descendant. Also once referred to by her previous kin as Anapu, stretched in the den it’s pack had claimed.

It’s claws raked through the grey stone that was the sum total of their lair’s structure without facing resistance, as it’s sharp fanged mouth let out a languid almost feline yawn. This movement woke the others of it’s kind causing them to hiss, while displacing the bones of their dead prey that littered the solid cave floor.

It hissed back at their growing complaints from being roused from their slumber, in turn, they quieted their dissent whilst lowering their white tufted heads in submission to their alpha.

Hierarchy was important to their kind and while they were capable of working together, they still required a leader.

Given that it was the strongest, it was natural that it was their Alpha.

There had been challenges in the past when it first gathered it’s kind, to scour the lands of prey to grown in strength. All had been put swiftly to the claw and fang as was its right as Alpha, for even though they were of its own like, those that would not follow, were of no use.

There was a painful and inescapable memory of when they had met the un-huntable, and the loss of most of its pack had taught it that despite previous evidence, they were not at the top of the food chain.

It involuntarily hissed at the memory of the energy user that had toyed with them like prey.

After their near total defeat, it had taken to going where the energy was stronger and consuming all they could find. The prey in the higher energy areas were more challenging certainly, but when it corralled it’s pack and their swelling number upon a prey, there was little anything could do to survive, save for trying to flee.

That is where its kind truly came into their element. It did not hurt that the thrill of the chase made the energy of the hapless taste so much sweeter.

For a time they remained unchallenged as they pushed ever further into the more densely energized lands, however when there was no greater prey to assail they began to stagnate in power.

Thus, their prey that was once so thrilling to hunt became no more than sustenance, bereft of challenge and delicious struggle.

Then one light time came the stronger users of energy.

When it had first encountered their kind, they were mere inconveniences, unsure whether to run or fight as they fell about themselves with lacking proficiency.

Then there had been the un-huntable.

The one that had been so strong though it stood alone and pack-less.

Now though, the ones they encountered wielded the energy its kind hungered for, to create workings of mesmerizing complexity.

The things themselves were certainly challenging, but none of them had yet to end more than an insignificant number of its swarm.

Every few light time’s, more of their number ventured unsuspecting into their territory. Feeling the shudder of the thrill at the memory of their mismatched screams of suffering while its swarm consumed them with abandon, made The Alpha tense in anticipation.

So as it stalked from the den into the salty and energy rich breeze, it scanned the rocky crags of their lands as the bitter water lapped at the fine earth, for signs of this light time’s sustenance.

Turning its black gaze to the thing that was but also was not, that the energy users seemed inexorably drawn to, near the advancing and receding froth of the bitter liquid.

Every so often the oddity would spew forth different shaped energy users which was an almost equally stimulating challenge. Less fortuitously, lesser prey would be unleashed before the oddity disappeared only to reappear a short time later nearby. Though having to find where the thing that was and was not, was certainly one of the lesser thrills of its current existence.

Initially, some of The Alpha’s kind had tried venturing into the thing to follow some of the energy users who had escaped, yet it and its kin were repelled by an unseen force from the thing that was and was not.

They had stalked around the thing that was and was not for several light times at different locations, yet the same energy users never made a return. Much to their kinds frustration they had to settle for observing the oddity from a remove, in hope that it drew in more prey challenging prey to come to the energy rich area they called theirs.

While it’s gaze tracked over the soft ground, It’s eyes widened in greedy delight as it witnessed a new group of energy users slowly approaching the thing that was and was not.

Not wanting them to disappear into it like they were wont to do, The Alpha moved with purpose back into its den, hissing in fervent command to rouse it’s swarm from their torpor and lead them for the hunt to come.

A flurry of activity rippled out from its communique as its kin scrapped and hissed their way over scarified bone and rock to heed its command and hunt the fresh prey. Some nipped at each other in a playful manner while a pair got into a deadly clash that left one of them to be quickly devoured by those nearby. Satisfied that enough had heeded its call, it led them out of one of the den’s entrances on the other side of the warren, so as not to spook their unsuspecting and vastly outnumbered prey.

Coming out on an adjoined soft bit of fine earth that was hidden by a rocky outcrop, the frothy and bitter liquid’s sounds of approach and retreat covered their passage till it was much too late for the prey to cross the distance to the oddity.

Shrieking in an exultant cry for the hunt to quicken, The Alpha’s kind needed no further encouragement as they dropped all pretense of stealth, leaping and bounding over the rocky outcrop to sprint over the fine wet earth.

Their prey began to yell in alarm at their approach, and much to it’s surprised dismay, put on bursts of speed that they had previously not known the energy wielders possessed.

The race was swift as their number blurred toward the equally fast prey, while screeching in delight at the new and unexpected challenge. The Alpha scorned its slightly slower kin as it pulled ahead to intercept the prey as they neared the oddity.

Then to its shock, one of the prey manipulated their coveted energy to release a blast of concentrated wind toward it and its swarm, knocking them further from the thing that was and was not while leaving the prey free to escape.

Shrieking in rage at being denied the energy that was it’s right, whilst it sailed through the air, it landed with a tumbling roll, coming to a violent rest against the outcrop it had used as obfuscation. Others of it’s kind landed in a similar state of disarray near it, while more still where knocked into the bitter ever shifting liquid.

Shaking itself after it leapt back to its claws, it shrieked once more at the prey as they neared the oddity to escape the swarm. Yet despite its expectations the prey did no vanish as it had feared.

Tilting its head from side to side in confusion, it considered what the cause for their lack of disappearance meant.

Deeming it to be of little immediate or practical use, it instead focused on the fact that the prey was still present and the hunt could resume in earnest.

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The energy users continued to gesticulate and warble loudly at each other in delicious panicked fear. Releasing a hiss to its now recovered kin, they hungrily followed The Alpha’s lead, to continue what had been so unjustly postponed.

It was as they collectively sprinted forward on the fine and soft ground that one of the prey screamed.

“JIN YOU LYING BASTARD! YOU SAID THE ZONE WAS DESERTED, I TOLD YOU WE WEREN’T READY FOR THE DELTA ZONE!”

Unable to understand their communication was a mild annoyance to The Alpha as somewhere in a faint and hazy memory, something itched to be understood.

Ignoring the sensation as it pelted headlong toward them another shorter prey screamed in reply.

“THIS ISN’T MY FAULT KIMI I SWEAR! WHEN I SCOUTED LAST WEEK IT WAS COMPLETELY EMPTY! IF YOUR GOING TO BLAME SOMEONE, BLAME THE FUCKING PARTY IN THE SIPHON!”

It was within a few hundred lope’s of them as The Alpha wondered at the contents of their complicated shrieks once more. Still, they would be sustenance soon, so what was the point of wasting time trying to figure out what the weakling’s warbles meant.

It was at this point that a larger member of the energy users bellowed at the first two screecher’s.

“SAVE THE LOVERS QUARREL FOR WHEN WE GET BACK TO THE SETTLEMENT YOU TWO, WE CAN’T OUTRUN THEM! LOOKS LIKE WE’LL JUST HAVE TO OUTLAST THEM. SHIELDS UP!”

Then to The Alpha’s shock, the prey channeled their energy into transparent round things that covered the group of six while they took up a circular arrangement inside.

Hissing as it skidded in the fine and damp ground to arrest its movement, it came to within two body lengths of the glowing barriers, while it’s swarm behind it tried to copy the quelling of its momentum, with varying degrees of success.

The Alpha watched with eyes of abyssal black as the ones of its kin who failed to stop in time, skidded and bounced off of the barriers with no noticeable effect to the barrier, or harm to itself. Tilting its head from side to side in consideration as the others of its kind encircled the barrier’s, it decided that although the prey was not yet beneath its claws, they were still close, and thus the hunt was still underway.

Letting out a snickering hiss of delight at the prolonged challenge, its joy was short lived as several sharp something’s came from within the barriers, skewering those to its right. Reflexively dodging to the left, it was forced to roll to the side as a whistling sound of something new came from with the barriers this time and something unseen swept where its head had just been.

Hisses of alarm went up from those nearby as it turned to find those directly behind where it had just been, severed in a completely new manner.

Scrambling away from the potentially fatal position near the barriers, The Alpha forewent the devouring of the fallen and rushed to a remove, at a respectable number of bounds away, to observe the nature of this new and unexpected threat.

While the less canny of its kind fell to things that came from within the created and intermittently flickering globes of the energy users had manifested, it listened to their communications over the shrieks of the hungry and the dying.

“Pace yourselves! If you don’t leave enough mana for the shields were done for!”

“How about using that thick skull of yours to worry about keeping up the defensive buffs instead, and let me worry about my own mana!”

“For every Manacraven we kill, there are a hundred to take its place, please listen!”

“SHIT! I’M OUT OF MANA!”

Following the last scream from their prey, the blue glowing dome winked out of being, leaving only a red and a golden one.

In response to the last frantic scream, a much more controlled, but still stressed intonation responded.

“Here take my mana potion. Let your natural regen do most of the work and don’t put a shield till one of the others runs out!”

“FUCK YOU KAI, JUST BECAUSE YOUR PARTY LEADER DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN BOSS ME AROUND!”

“That’s exactly what it means….”

“GO TO HELL ASSHOLE!”

Still unable to glean what their cries and warbles meant, The Alpha gave up on the renewed attempt at understanding, because no matter the reason, the trapped prey would tire before their own kind did.

They always did.

The light time was a quarter way through and despite The Alpha’s expectations, the prey still huddled beneath the barriers that continued to resist their kinds probing attacks with long sharp objects and spurts of colored energy that lanced forth randomly.

It was beginning to grow mildly alarmed at the amount of its lesser kin that had perished to the things the energy users sent from behind their defense. Still, a small portion of the swarm was a small price to pay for the delight of hunting such challenging prey so it hungrily urged its kin to persist with a shriek.

Finally The Alpha’s patience and caution yielded results when one of the poorly armored prey screamed.

“MY MANA’S OUT KAI!….I JUST WANT YOU GUYS TO KNOW…..IT’S BEEN A PRIVILEGE TO WITNESS THIS SHIT SHOW WITH YOU! I HONESTLY NEVER THOUGHT WE’D MAKE IT THIS FAR….”

“FUCK YOU SUNG, I’M NOT READY TO DIE YET!”

“NEVER THOUGHT I’D SEE THE DAY I’D AGREE WITH JIN!”

“HAHA SAME HERE!”

“I am in agreement.”

“FUCK YOU LEE, AND YOU WANG! ALSO FUCK YOU TOO KIMI YOU SELF RIGHTO-“

“SHUT UP JIN AND SAVE YOUR STRENGTH TO TRY AND TAKE AT LEAST A FEW MORE WITH YOU”

“DON’T THINK I FORGOT ABOUT YOU KAI, YOU ARROGANT PRICK! FUCK YO-“

“GUYS THE AGEIS IS ABOUT TO POP!

Then the last barrier of shining gold winked out of existence and The Alpha let out an exultant screech while the energy users responded with battle cries of their own. Its kin bounded forward as one to close the small gap to their prey when a flash of light occurred like when the oddity spewed forth different energy users before it moved elsewhere.

Having learned from experience not to blindly attack things that appeared from what was and was not, its kind abruptly halted their advance with a mixture of hisses and ungainly skidding on the soft and damp, fine earth.

Waiting expectantly for the light to clear The Alpha heard a new warble released from where the prey had huddled.

“Uh hi, guys, I uh… I mean you no harm?”

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?!?!”

“WHERE IN THE HELLS IS THE REST OF YOUR PARTY!??!”

“Guys we have a more pressing issue right now…”

“FUCK YOU KAI!”

“Oh hey its those things… I’m gonna stick you guys somewhere safe for a bit…I…I need a little payback for my coat….”

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT!?!?”

“Sorry about Jin, he’s had a hard day..“

“FUCK YOU WANG!”

“Uh…also if you could please not attack the rude teenagers, you would be doing me a favor…”

“FUCK YOU! YOU GREY SHITHE-“

As its vision began to clear The Alpha saw something blur and disappear from the middle of the clearly confused prey with a *BOOM*.

Jerking its head left and right to see where the new prey went, it registered in horror the sight of the six energy users, dropping into a round thing that was but was not on the ground as they screamed and flailed in alarm.

The Alpha’s black eyes became slits as it threw back its head and opened its razor sharp teeth to screech in rage when it saw its kin become a seething mass as they rushed toward each other, faster that it had ever witnessed before.

That was when it saw the familiar muzzle of the un-huntable standing next to the shrieking writhing mass that must have been nearly a third of its remaining swarm.

In the time it had not seen the un-huntable it had become impossibly more…substantial… the energy it contained hummed to its keen senses like nothing it had yet encountered. Adding to the absurdity of pulsing call of its amassed energy, was its manipulations of that energy into things so complex it could not accurately perceive their whole.

Dread like The Alpha had never known suffused it mind as the writhing mass of soft earth, bitter liquid and its kin, disappeared into a nothingness of the energies making.

Shrieking to its remaining pack mates to retreat, it heard another *BOOM* and the un-huntable was further embedded in the chaotic throng of its fleeing kind, at the other end of the soft fine earth.

Despite its frantic state, a moment of curiosity got the better of The Alpha as it watched the monstrous thing repeat what it had done just moments ago, ending multitudes of its painstaking gathered and honed kin.

What little reason it had was snuffed out at the inexplicable loss of so many in so few beats of its heart.

Shrieking defiance, The Alpha charged at the thing that had come to try and finish its devouring of their kind with energy that should rightfully be theirs. Bounding past the scattering members that remained still breathing, it was within a few long bounds of the thing when it disappeared with a *BOOM*, this time however it was unable to see where it went because it felt a limb shatter in several places and was knocked aside, causing it to fly toward the bitter, turbulent liquid with a startled yelp.

Splashing back first into the foamy and turgid shallows, The Alpha righted itself on its three unbroken limbs, spluttering against the bitterness of the liquid in its nose. Its feeling of discomfort only lasted but a moment as its vision spun before it was yanked free of the foamy liquid, to rush through the air for half a heartbeat before it crunched into something sharp and wet.

Struggling as it screeched in pain when it’s senses registered the several rents in its now barely responsive body, before its vision began to fade.

Then the un-huntable appeared before it as it put a hand through its stomach with impossible speed before it quietly warbled.

“I really should thank those guys for the easy manamotes..”

With another jerk of motion, its fragmented vision blurred for but a fraction of what would have been the beat of its heart, if it was still capable of such.

Then the being once known as Anapu, ceased to be.