“Move it, William! This is no time to sit back on your lazy ass!”
Efraim was working him and the remainder of Aceso’s pack, hard. William launched himself up to some overhanging bars and heaved his seven foot tall werewolf frame over a thick wall. He plunged downward to land on all fours and ripped at the squishy foam underneath his claws. It was ripped, but provided good traction and with one motion he was at full speed racing toward the leaning tubes that awaited him seventy yards away.
He glanced back over his shoulder to see his Alpha. Aceso leaped from the wall and instead of falling straight down she pushed herself out and away from the wall like an Olympic swimmer pushing off from the starting block. William slowed as he watched her sail gracefully through the air and land just behind her Enforcer. William didn’t let his being impressed slow him for very long. He pushed himself lower and faster as he neared the tubes.
Aceso would race with him for the duration of the course. Even though William had more or less mastered his two forms, he knew that Aceso was always going to be his better in this form. She had been wolf born, and even though William considered himself to have earned a bachelor’s degree in shape shifting, Aceso had a doctorate.
Aceso had almost completely caught up with him by the time he reached the tubes. He threw himself down to the ground and then bouncing off the soft surface of the course heaved himself up and jumped up as far as he could, his claws spreading readying themselves to find purchase inside the tubes. When he felt himself start to slow he jammed his claws into the tube and furiously tore at the enclosure to maintain speed on the way up. He could hear his self generated noise being amplified all around him. The sound of his grunting, and his claws scraping at the tube as he forced himself higher and higher through the tube, was heard as a roar all around him. He didn’t let the noise bother him. His entire being was focused on getting to the top.
He saw the glimmer of light at the end of the tube as he fought to keep his momentum going. No matter how many times he was forced to run this obstacle course, he always lost it in the tubes. Using more will than he would have liked to admit, he grabbed at the edge of the tube and pulled himself out. He glanced to his side and didn’t see Aceso. He fell forward to land on all fours and started running towards the “Towers” only to see that Aceso already had a good ten yards of a lead on him. No wonder I didn’t see her.
Aceso was all form and grace as she seemed to glide over the harsh rock of the over look. Her limbs gave no effort as they propelled her farther and farther away from him. Even after all this time, the pack bond that Aceso and he shared seemed to be of far more help to her than to him. He lowered his head and found the strength that he needed to push his legs faster.
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Aceso would reach the “Towers” before he did, but he wasn’t completely out of it yet. He felt sharp rocks underneath dig into his claw pads, but he couldn’t be bothered by that now. He pushed off the ground harder with every stride trying to reach his Alpha. The pack bond gave him reserves of strength that he never knew existed and he tapped into as much of it as he could. The only problem was, was that Aceso was tapping into the same source. The stronger he got Aceso also benefited. Not really fair for him, being that he was behind in the race at the moment.
He lifted his head as the “Towers” loomed ahead of him. They were really just replica apartment buildings but being that they were ten stories tall and only scaled down slightly, a foot or less per floor they had simply been referred to as the “Towers” and he couldn’t think of anything better to call them either.
Aceso dropped out of sight in front of him, only to bound upward as she scaled between the first two buildings jumping from one then the other. The building had minimal grating of fire escapes and the windows were more like deep divots in the stone that the buildings had been carved away from. He watched as Aceso pushed herself off from one building, flipping her body perfectly in mid air to land with her paws against the side of the other building and pushing off immediately to do the whole maneuver all over again. She was poetry in motion all smooth swift motions. William’s style was rougher around the edges but his superior strength gave him the edge in this obstacle.
William shot out away from the rocky overlook toward the left building. This gap was much farther away than the buildings themselves were, but the running start usually equalized the beginning distance. He gripped at the corner of the building and let his legs swing around. He let go of the building and his body’s momentum swiveled him in midair so that he could use his legs to shove off from the building. The timing of the maneuver was crucial and he had, once or twice, fallen five stories straight down. In werewolf form he had only suffered from some broken bones, easily fixable by Aceso or Physis or another healer. Had he been in his human form he probably would have died.
He twisted his body into a roll and then flipped himself over like a swimmer coming up to do a flip turn, which is exactly how it worked. He absorbed the impact with his legs and shoved off once more to glide through the air between the Towers.
The obstacle was in two parts. The first part was up the buildings, the second was going back down again. The first part was the hardest part, physically. But getting down was just as dangerous if he didn’t pay attention.
As he readied himself for another flip turn, he glanced back at the over look. Nicholas was huffing and puffing hard, as he hauled himself out of one of the tubes, barely able to drag himself out. Katherine, on the other hand, was already making her first jump out into space ready to begin her hop scotch climb up the builds, following in his and Aceso’s footsteps.
Katherine was not as graceful as Aceso but her cream colored fur was a stark contrast to the black obsidian around her and William admired seeing his pack mate fly. He ducked and turned and pushed himself off again toward the opposite building.