Cainites have this thing called the Beast, it’s this sort of inner demon that we are born within those first moments of revival. From that first reawakening it screams for blood, violence, and even fear. What sets it off depends on the stimuli but most react with fight or flight in the most animalistic way possible. Fight in the case of hunger and flight in the same of peril and the beast is deathly afraid of a few things. Fire being one of those as it’s one of the few things that we have no real defense against and there is no torporing our way out of ashes. Why do I bring this up? Well there is a nuclear fire sort of beastie I decided needed killing and my inner demon was screaming at me to run away, run far away. If I had been a normal vampire then yeah I probably would have lost that inner battle and bolted like a cat with its tail stepped on. Instead I practiced a Path and with it came something most vampires never consider. Instead of fighting the Beast you can guide it, urge it onto a more productive path by embracing it as part of yourself. So instead of trying to wrestle my inner demon to do what I wanted I urged it into violence against the thing that terrified it.
Nala didn’t need my instructions as she wasn’t a pokemon and knew how to hunt down her target. Even as I worked myself into a frothing frenzy she was already moving to separate the chaff from the more dangerous target. We though weren’t a wolf pack and Nala separated them in the only way a cougar could. She got as close as possible and then leaped onto the chitinous freaks before snapping her jaws around its neck and dragging it to the ground. Her claws raked its armor pulling chunks of rotting meat away with relative ease. After all she was a higher rank spirit these Wyrm fodder.
While Nala initiated conflict I was right behind. With a scream of primal rage and fury my enhanced body pounced onto the Scag with the Balefire Elemental. Nala had caught them by surprise so when I came out of nowhere at Celerity speed the malignant spirit wasn’t ready. I wasn’t a disciplined fighter… There was no grand sweeping strategy or tactic… I ran on raw instinct and like my cougar partner I slammed into the Scag blade first. Folded steel collapsed the creature’s chest as destructive energy spread through the wound. Both of us hit the cavern floor and with both hands free my knife like claws slashed through the Scags face tearing spirit matter off in oily chunks.
The Balefire elemental in the form of a viper was crushed underneath us as it hadn’t been able to entwine itself before I hit like a pint-size linebacker. Green sickly embers sputtered from its mouth as it tried to get into striking position but like the oversized feral cat I was my fist countered slamming the snake back into ground before it could bite. Then before it could pry itself out of my grasp my head lunged forward snapping fangs into its body before thrashing wildly ripping the possessed viper in half. Spirit matter erupted from the torn flesh and I instinctively drank deep to recover from the energy I wasted buffing myself prior to the fight. Underneath me the Scrag didn’t move and out of wrath my claws scored it’s tough flesh again before darkness covered my sight temporarily.
Blinking a little, my sight returned to find that I had fallen to the side as one of the three Scrag’s Nala had been fighting had managed to disengage and crack the side of my skull with a metal bar. Blinking in utter disbelief at my tunnel vision to have missed the creature, my Beast roared defiance as precious vitae was burned for the 3rd stage of Spirit which was Aspect of the Beast. The roar that erupted from my throat hit the unnatural hell spawn like a sonic wave disrupting it long enough for my beastly warform to pounce onto it. Claws dug into the hard exoskeleton but I wasn’t going to be killing it with claws. Snapping forward like a viper my mouth expanded unnaturally before crushing the windpipe of the Scrag. Like the others it was banished but not with all its spiritual energy as I devoured a good bit in my never ending hunger.
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Nala, Gaia bless her, had taken down one of the two she was fighting and was now wrestling with the other. Sure she was big and angry but the Scag was heavier so without the advantage of surprise it was keeping her pinned despite how much her claws scored its body. She would hold on long enough though for me to destroy the Wyrmhole and prevent it from puking up more of these creatures. Normally I would retrieve my sword first but with the Beast riding me hard tactical logic had gone out of the window and would stay gone until all my foes were vanquished. So instead of doing the sensible thing and attacking it with the spirit enhanced blade my feral mind struck with claws.
Psychic screams of pain and rage shook the mine as I touched and hurt the sentient portal to Umbra. My claws were able to cleave it because I practiced the Thaumaturgical art of Spirit Manipulation. Vampires did not naturally affect the Umbra, that was a shapeshifter thing but Ahrimanes were different. We were the closest thing to Garou not directly birthed by Gaia. We could command, hurt, devour, and control spirits and my claws were doing the hurting now. Frenzied slashes tore at the oily membrane and if I was rational enough to listen I would hear the Wyrm trying to command me like I was just another wyrm tainted vampire. It demanded I stop but my frenzied body only saw something that needed to be eliminated and it wouldn’t stop until the portal collapsed.
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The fight did not go unnoticed… Gathered around what appeared to be a board meeting room were 7 men and women watching the event seemingly through the Wyrmhole itself. One of them was chuckling wildly at the display of aggression and violence. Shaggy black hair and red eyes, the man had a crazy look in his eyes as he was delighted to watch the fight despite their plot being dismantled before their remote viewing.
“And what is so funny Ansen?” One of the men in a black corporate suit demanded of his cackling associate. “We had been preparing that site for months and some random blood sucker just stumbled upon the site and ruined our investment?” His tone was no nonsense and businesslike as the remote viewing ended with a pop as the Wyrmhole was devoured in front of the board's eyes.
“What’s funny? That punk just ate a gods damn portal to the Umbra! How can I not be amused by this. Do you know what she is?” He replied, shaking in excitement at what they just witnessed. His compatriots just shrugged, not having an answer to his question.
“Do enlighten us Ansen.” The prior man asked with a bored expression. He was already thinking about the paperwork this would cause and how to spin it so that their stock prices didn’t drop. The market hated losers after all.
“Delighted too! That my friend was a leech whose lineage I thought was eradicated back in the 90s. I heard that one was spotted in Montreal that was apart of the Sword but our representatives never made contact. To think the line of Valkyries was still running around. I want her…” The man howled in excitement as he imagined picking that girl apart. His eyes were crazy as he imagined how fun it would be to dance the spiral with her in tow. An honest to gods Ahrimane in a post Inquisition world and she seemed to be heading south. He wondered why but didn’t care. He now had a play thing that wouldn’t break easily. Then once done he would sacrifice her to the Wyrm. “Who wants to go on a road trip?”