A Wolf in The Wild (solo)

Standing on the precipice of a plateau overlooking the river valley below, the small quaint village within it nested sleepily on the shores of the medium river and the wind gently blowing from the west, Ascenia observed the place of her birth. In that one view, her past, her present, and her future were all encapsulated by the setting moon and rising sun. At this particular time and place, in this one moment, she felt despair, rage, joy, pride, and most of all, loss, hit her like a freight train. In that small village there, her life had been started, and lived. And in that small village, her old life was destroyed and this new one started. There, int hat village, was she conceived, born, and raised. And there, in that village did she receive the news of her husband's death, see the death and mutilation of her family, and lose her unborn child.

A shiver racked her, shook her to the very core of her being. The air was warm and humid, so it was not a shiver from the environment. It was a shiver from her very soul. A shudder from her mind. She had once vowed to never return here, to never glance upon it again...but some oaths are meant to be broken in the passage of time. Glancing away from the village, she grabbed her pack, and supplies and started walking and climbing her way down to the over-hang of the plateau. Here, she made her camp, and secured it.

She pitched her tent facing the south, facing directly at the village, and made her fire pit from stones she found laying around. As she moved the stones, her mind began to drift and wander, back to the times her father had shown her how to build a snare trap or how to track animals....and hollows. And how her mother had taught her to dress meat, as well as wounds. As she worked, a thought crossed her mind.

“im going to need more food than what I brought...which means im going to have to hunt.....using my powers would only hurt the purpose of why im here...so I guess ill have to do things the old fashioned way. Which means im going to need to make some snares and other traps...and that im going t have to start tracking.”

The thought of tracking animals for food took her back to happier times. Memories of summers spent hunting game and hollow in the hills and mountains of this area, learning the best ways to trap and lure her prey and how to mercifully and painlessly kill them, in the case of animals. In the case of hollow, however..That was a different story. Her father had shown the same hate and fear of hollows that all quincy had. And he taught her to never have remorse for them, and their deaths. Ascenia however, didnt see it that way. She had learned through personal experience, that some hollow could be reasoned with, and that some were even not even interested in killing off Quincy. She had learned much since the time she had last been here.

None of them were fit for her to make a bow from. So, she decided she would have to break the rules, and use her quincy bow to hunt for food. She made her way down to a small pond, and with her kit, checked to see if it was safe to use as a drinking source. The tests came back negative for any form of contaminant. From there, she began looking around for any signs of game. A few meters from the pond, due east, she found the tracks of a muntjack. She thought back to her father teaching her about these strange deer. The thing she remembered most, was that they ate meat. That concept for some reason still slightly disturbed her, even now. Just it seemed so...unnatural, for a deer to eat flesh.

Ascenia, shaking off her feelings of uneasiness, Continued on, following the tracks. For 2 hours, she followed them, until finally, she found what she was hunting. In a small clearing, a muntjack was, well..eating a squirrel. Ascenia shivered. It creeped her out that a deer was eating flesh of another mammal. It just didnt seem natural that a deer was eating flesh. She was about 50 meters away. SO, she raised her arm hosting her Sanrei glove, and summoned her quincy bow. The gauntlet was glowing with her purple reishi. She took aim, and focused on the target.

It had finished eating its small snack of squirrel, and was now grazing around the foilage. The wind was blowing against ascenia, from the east. So her scent was hidden from the deer. But its scent was not hidden from her. The smell of its sweat, of its meal just eaten, filled her nose. She could smell the blood of the squirrel on its lips. With her wolf ears, as she focused on the target, She could hear the beat of its heart faintly. And the drawing and exhaling of each breath. She could now see, its muscles moving ever so slightly as it moved to graze.

For minutes she watched her prey, waiting for the best oppurtunity to strike. Finally, it presented itself. The deer had moved to just the right position in the clearing. Ascenia didnt hesitate. When the chance arose, she unleashed a single charged arrow, and pierced the deer's body, killing it instantly. Smiling with a sense of accomplishment she walked up to the deer and pulled out her knife, to begin skinning it. But something alerted her. The sound of a breaking twig when she had bent down caused her to go on high alert, and began charging a burst of arrows.

What came from the brush then made her giggle. It was a fox kit, just wandering. She allowed her bow to release a stream of reishi energy and smiled. The small red fox kit was roughly a few weeks old. She sighed and cut the little creature a piece of the meat. It showed no fear of her. She tossed the meat to it, and it began to eat. Not far behind it though, she heard the low growl, of a mother fox, and she backed up, showing her that she wasnt a threat.

“its ok mother fox. I wont hurt your baby. Im just trying to survive.”

To others, it may have seemed foolish to talk to an animal. But to Ascenia, any animal was as intelligent as man, as she had become somehow animal, due to the experiments done to her. The mother fox continued to growl. Ascenia sighed. She concentrated very hard on the mother fox, and said

“I am not your enemy. I am a friend. Come close, and see.”

Amazingly , the mother fox came closer, as if she understood Ascenia, not primaly, but intellectually. For with caution, the vixen came as close to her as the kit, which was now only at least 3 feet away and sat down, and nuzzled the young fox.Ascenia cut a slice of meat and tossed it to the vixen, who turned her nose up.

“Too proud to take hand outs huh? Well, thats fine. Ill just leave it there..you stuck up thing.”

The fox cocked her head at this statement, and bore her teeth. Ascenia's wolf ears then twitched. A thought occurred to her. This fox, was understanding whats he was saying. Actually Understanding her words. Ascenia blinked, and got an idea.

“If you understand what I am saying, then, I want to try something. If you know what im saying and understand me, if you could turn around and follow your tail one time until you face me, I will give you the kidneys and liver of this deer. Understand?”

Almost as if by some sort of weird magic, the fox arose and did exactly as Ascenia had said. She nearly fell back and fainted from the amazement. The fox actually did understand her. The vixen then coked her head and looked at the deer and then back to Ascenia. Ascenia smiled and used her knife to retrieve the parts of the deer she had promised, and gave the vixen the parts mentioned. The vixen shared these parts with the kit, and Ascenia smiled. She could talk to animals,and they could understand her. She then began to wonder, if she could understand them, then decided that she couldn't, for she didnt posses the knowledge of animal calls and noises to grasp what they would be saying. She applied the logic, that if in human, you couldn't speak German, and listened to German people speaking, you wouldn’t grasp the words and meaning.

She looked up at the sky, then pulled a smal pocket watch from her pocket. “it is noon already. I should get back to camp and cure the rest of this deer...”

Looking at the vixen and her kit, now smelling at the deer, Ascenia had an idea now. She took all the organs and such out, and gave them to the vixen and the kit.

“You take these to your den and eat. I'll take the rest, ok?”

The vixen and kit nodded, and took the organs they could in their mouths. Ascenia smiled, then had another thought. She pointed to the location of her camp.

“I shall be up there, underneath the overhang, if you need me to help you...or something. Just..uhh...Make fox noises before you enter the camp..im quite..uhh...quick to attack if caught off guard.”

The vixen and the kit both nodded and walked off. Turning to her deer, Ascenia sighed, and picked it up,and began the trek back to camp. When she arrived, she felt something wasnt right. She laid the dear besides the fire pit, and began investigating. What she fewlt was soon explained, for inside her tent, She found a sleeping female, wearing all black. She was very beautiful, as Ascenia could see her face. But there was something off about her. Ascenia hit the post of the tent.

“Hey you!! what are you doing in my tent!?!?!?”

Neya lay there, exhausted. She barely stirred at the yelling and the loudness of Ascenia. She had come a long way, on foot in a gigai no less, to avoid detection of outside forces. Even for a shinigami, the 22 mile trek was exhausting. it had been storming and raining with fierce winds and even more fierce rain. Neya had trekked through this horrid weather, not only to hide, but because to attempt to fly in such a storm was suicide. The storm finally broke when she had reached the plateau Ascenia had camped under. Her gigai was exhausted, and Neya herself, was mentally and morally exhausted. The entire way, she had been plagued by flashbacks of war and genocide, committed by her and other shinigami...mainly against the quincy. Then, she had been a young and obedient soldier. Although she didnt kill all of the quincy that came before her, such as children and women who were young or with child. But there was one Quincy that stuck out to her.

A young, Silver haired Quincy woman, with a small blue eyed child behind her. The two had entered into combat after neya had tried to pardon her and expressed her will to not kill her. But to no avail. In the end, it was Neya who came out victorious. But at what cost? The face of the child was burned into her mind, staring in terror at her. Neya remembered what her reiatsu smelt like, how it felt. and recently, Neya had sensed someone with a signature similar to this. An ancestor, she had determined, of the girl she had spared.

Neya had tracked the unknown person to this location, not to fight, but to talk.


Neya was slowly starting to wake, the sounds of yelling and the feeling of energy surging from one point. She looked drowsily upwards and outwards towards Ascenia, seeing only the weapon aimed at her. leaving her gigai and roaring furiously, Neya swept her tail at Ascenia, and released a breath of flame form her maw, directing the heat at Ascenia.

Ascenia, ever quick on her feet and prepared to fight to the death, used her martial training and reflexes to reverse hand spring from the tent and then tumble to her left to avoid being burnt alive. She only partially succeeded. Her hair caught fire, and her finger tips were burnt by the heat. Thankfully, her enhanced healing capabilities made the burns short lived. But Ascenia didnt retaliate. instead, she sat there dazed by what she saw. A red dragon, clothed as a shinigami. The stories told to her by her mother and her mother's mother, and her ancestors, were true. The dragon shinigami was real. And so too was the family born oath, to slay her should she ever appear. Ascenia was now certain, that her duty to the family, was vengeance. What she had come to do beforehand, was dwarfed in importance to this. Standing, she aimed her Quincy weapon at Neya.

"In the name of my Ancestor, Lin-Fui Lang De Xin, I, Ascenia Lang De Xin, shall slay you, and bring honor to my family's name!!"

And with that, Ascenia fired off quincy arrows in rapid succession, in bursts of 20. But Neya was far too fast for Ascenia to hit. Before Ascenia could release another flurry, Neya was upon her, lashing with claw, fist, and tail, using her superior speed and strength to batter Ascenia. But Ascenia was determined to not be defeated. Her want of vengeance and her body's healing factor were helping her fight back. She landed successful attacks against Neya, striking her in the stomach and diaphragm eventually. Neya had to jump back from Ascenia, only to catch her breath. She was still tired, and she hadn't fully planned for a fight. In those seconds it took Neya to disengage, Ascenia had just enough time to prepare herself for another bout. Gathering up reishi in the air, and concentrating it, Ascenia formed a round shield.

Spoiler:

Neya Saw the formation of the shield, and growled. This quincy was resourceful, and it became clear to Neya, that although she was far more powerful, she would be hard pressed to kill this quincy easier. But that was just the problem. Neya didnt want to kill her. She only wanted to talk. But she couldn't find the words to speak up. So, she stood up straight, and roared, and released a jet of flame form her mouth, 3 feet wide and 5 feet long, in a cone at Ascenia.

The quincy dropped to her knees, and raised up the large circular shield. THe red hot flames writhed around the shield. Ascenia struggled to keep the shield steady, her strength waning with each passing minute of the fiery onslaught. She felt her shield arm giving way. She ahd to act quickly, or be burnt to death. Then, she remembered something her father had taught her. She charged up a quincy arrow and launched it upwards, and them with her mind, directed it to strike Neya from her left. The arrow struck its mark. Neya roared in pain, as the arrow pierced her left wing, and the spout of fire stopped.

Neya growled in anger. She had been careless. Her focus had been on defeeating the quincy, but had allowed the instincts of the dragon to take over and had lost her usual level of combat focus.The reishi arrow burned her wing. She couldnt remove it, otherwise the quincy would just control it again. As it seethed inside her wing, neya grew more angry. She could feel her body temperature rising. she flexed her scales to try and vent the heat, but it didnt work. She then became even more frustrated, and

arching due to request

moving due to request.

test