Chapter 317: CHPT 317: She, Who has been Changed....He, Who has been Broken....
The winds were colder....
Hard on Claude's skin as if it had been stripped bare with it's rawest components and left to face the world. Left to face the truth.
He didn't like it. Every piece of him wanted to curl up inside himself and hide from reality, but his body was held by the ice-cold hold of shock, lathered in his own cold sweats and steeled muscles. He really did want to move-- maybe he would've been able to, if he could ever take his eyes off the woman who stood across from him, bathed in the shadows of the woodlands.
They were like two Deer caught in the headlights. Frozen, wide-eyed, stunned, unmoving. Every synonym you could think of, that was them.
Until she moved.
It was like an odd replaying of him meeting her for the first time again. Only now she wasn't walking through a crowd of students. It was just them, and as she approached him, he couldn't actually believe it was her.
Her movement's were silenced, made more for stalking and less for barging into battle loudly. It was the smallest of changes and still.....it cracked a piece of his heart, because he knew she wasn't doing it on purpose. It was what she was now.
She continued, haphazardly approaching him. He stayed frozen in time.
In seconds, she breached the woodland and sauntered into the sunlight of dawn. Her bare feet hit it's rays first, highlighting the smooth skin marred by tiny cuts and dirt. She ran to him-- and she did so faster than she ever had. That first run, it was like nothing else, the faint touches of Wild Magic, the infinite lungs, the electrifying jolt of purely predatory powered muscles. He could sense it on her.
As his eyes climbed the rest of her, he could see it too. In the bulge of her calves that stretched out her incredibly tight and now undersized jeans, only made tighter with each step she made, causing her thick quad muscles to flex and force the seams of her pants to hold onto each other for dear life.
The first glimpse of the change he'd noticed in detail. Her legs. They were always a sign of her power. Thick, beefy, strong. Now, they had an agile grace added to them-- a touch of deadly femininity and tone that transformed her lower body from looking simply strong....to lethal. Like she could run just as well as she could leg press unimaginable weight.
His eyes climbed once more as the sun's rays put more of her on display. Gazing slowly, up the quads, widened hips, to the beginnings of her upper body. Her waist was slim. Slimmer than before oddly enough-- as if the change sucked away her body fat in it's process of catapulting her a few years into the future. He could see her stomach as clear as day from beneath the shadows of her-- also, criminally undersized blue t-shirt. Not an ounce of fat. Just like him, the jutting lines and cuts of raw muscle stood in it's place in the form of a rather inhuman eight pack. Again, just like him.
Her suntanned skin disappeared as the beginnings of her shirt did their purpose in covering the rest of her. Most of her.
His eyes flicked over to her arms. She retained her bulbous shoulder and shed the fat, causing the tanned skin to tightly wrap around her biceps, triceps and very faintly veined forearms. He could see and smell dried blood on her fingernails. He worried for Rollan, but he couldn't move.
Only look. Up to her chest, where a large hole in her shirt revealed a portion of her chest and shoulder. The opening wasn't graced by her usual tanned skin-- instead, it was all one giant patch of scare tissue in the shape of star with too many points. The skin was still puffy and poreless-- making him remember the event as clear as day and want to hurl with the growing amount of guilt he felt. It felt like his skull was cracking.....the pain and fear pushing against the walls of his brain now made stronger by the rushing waves of guilt.
Guilt that only grew when she came to a stop a few feet away from him-- completely bathed in the sunlight and standing only a couple inches shorter than himself....making her six foot two at the very least.
He had a perfect memory of her face. As he did with Warren, Isaac, Maris and his pack. His memory no longer fit.
Her once somewhat chubby cheeks, cute button nose thick auburn eyebrows and honey brown eyes had morphed into something new. Something older...harder. The chubby cheeks were no more, following the lead of the rest of her body that shed any useless fat. Now, only feminine beauty slanted by something predatory stood in it's place. Her cheeks were slim, hugging her cheekbones just right before sweeping under her soft jawline. The spread of freckles that danced across her cheeks and nose like sprinkles of cinnamon remained-- unchanged, still giving her face a clashing hint of cuteness. A cuteness that wouldn't be found again in her much more intense almost honey-gold eyes. They held a look of pure sadness, fear and confusion.
Woooo....
A single breeze interrupted their silence, causing her hear to blow in the wind following it's pull. The change-- again, as clear as day. The hair that once hung down in her back in a brown-- almost auburn, ponytail, now hung down her back freely in rich aurburn-- reddish, waves. A color closer to her fathers if he remembered correctly.
Ursula Legrand, the worlds newest Shape-Shifter....
There she stood. He'd made her a Monster....there was no avoiding it. She was a Monster, she'd want to consume human flesh, feed on human fear and every Full Moon madness would come to the forefront of it all.
"...C-Claude....what happened?" She asked again, in a husky-- yet smooth and aged voice.
Whatever had been cracking within Claude's mind since he saw her stabbed by the HellBreeder had split in half, abandoning the slowburn of psychosis and simply tearing open the floodgates.
His head began to shake, a slow movement of disapproval. A disapproving movement against everything. Every cut, every stab, every loss, every step closer to failure and away from humanity. And now, there she stood...
"[Claude....?]"
The shakes climbed until he was almost moving erratically-- like he was repeatedly being spooked by unseen figures all around him. The ghosts of his fear, anxiety, failure, guilt, hatred...made real.
"No...No..."
"Wha--"
"I had to!" He snarled, a haze of incoherence masked his features and gave a sickly green glow to his eyes.
Ursula jumped slightly, just as confused as every other witness on the field.
He continued to shake his head and run his hands through his hair in a self soothing manner, straightening the shadowy mane that hung past his chest.
Ursula watched silently, noticing his claws were cutting into his scalp.
She moved forward, causing him to stumble backward.
"NO! I DIDN'T WANT TO.....I HAD TO!" He snapped again, pointing at her to emphasize his words, despite the fact the he could've been talking to anyone. He needed her to understand....needed them to understand. Needed himself to understand.
Frosty planted himself close to Ursula's hip.
"[Claude, it's going--]"
"I had no choice!" He interrupted the voice in his mind, let in blend in with the others that could've been his own consciousness. He couldn't tell....couldn't achieve coherence.
His breaths quickened, faster and faster until they were simply quick gulps of air while he continued to run his hands through his hair until black strands caught in his shaking palms.
"It was going to take you from me!....FROM US!.....I had to do this! NO MORE DEATH!..NO...FUC-- NnnnrghO!"
Steam began to rise from his shoulders and back muscles, adding the sound of his bones crunching and lengthening to the already loud sound of his claws ripping open his scalp.
Ursula's insides clenched, her brain vomited a memory of a time when she didn't know Claude wasn't human. The time when she entered the forest, and saw a grey skinned beast-man stuck somewhere between human boy and nightmarish monster, facing off against a Demon worlds stronger than he was. Back then, steam rose from him too. It rose from every inch of him as if he'd just been reborn from the sun.
She moved into action, lacking the exact understanding of what was happening, but aware that an overload of stress was liquefying his mental state. She took a couple steps towards him as she called his name, hoping to reach him, all it did was make him move in response.
FWOOSH!
One moment he was standing a few feet from her. Then, she blinked, and suddenly his hands were fastened around her arms while his eyes burned into her own.
His eyes. They were so haunted....maybe it was a trick of the light. The way the sun stood behind him, causing his long black hair to hang over his face, casting it in the shadows allowing only the violent mindless glow of his horrified eyes to convey his emotions.
Eyes that never moved from hers-- even as his head shook, still saying no to whatever words she couldn't hear.
Frosty and the pack whined, circling them in confusion while Gil stood off in the distance, shaken as well.
Above them, the not-raven circled and cawed in panic, adding to the chaos while the creatures continued to circle them.
"I had to!...I'm so sorry....You understand, don't you....?-- I'M NOT A HERO!....but i had to save you! I had to save you because that's what we do! I had to!...B-...Because that's what we do! We s-- save each-other.....I couldn't do it....I-- you were dying...You. Were. Dying...."
Ursula nodded along, trying to agree with and follow his rantings.
His words came out jumbled and erratic, every second his voice dropped another octave and his eyes glowed brighter, like the beast beneath was slowly wading through the waters of human clarity and inches from breaching the surface.
She needed to do something. All she had on her was the one object she always carried with her. Nothing of serious monetary value. But something of immeasurable significance-- even if no one else knew she had it...
"You.....you were dying....I couldn't let you die....because we save each-other. I h-Had to do it! Because we--"
"--Save each other.....yes, I remember. Do you remember this, Claude?" Ursula asked, holding out the silver coin in a shaking grip as she fought against his hold to make him see the object.
Silence fell, brought on by the all or nothing circumstances. Bring Claude back into his mind, or let him spiral into insanity....if he wasn't already too far gone.
He stood silently. His wild eyes looked away from her for the first time and fixated on the silver coin.
The coin they'd won....after slaying the HellBred Plated Snake and experiencing their Rebirth's. Cast into the world of Heroes, Villains and Monsters.
He could remember it as clear as day, waking up in the hospital, confused and in pain despite being healed.
The note on the side of his bed. A note from Professor Raizen congratulating them on their win. He was so sure that she was there with him that he just threw the coin behind him to the next bed, smiling as he heard her hands snatch the coin out of the air.
He remembered her face then...finding the past image blending with the present. Back and forth, matching the switching chaos of the voices and his aching mind. He'd turned her into a Monster.....but she was still....her...
Slowly, it calmed. His skull didn't feel like it was being pried apart. His skin didn't feel like a blanket of fire, his breaths slowed.
The pain remained as he looked at her, now only cold and....incredibly tired...
The glow faded and his grip loosened as tears ran down his face like twin waterfalls.
"I'm so sorry.....Ursula. I had to do it....to save you." He mumbled through eyes that seemed to lower by the second.
He looked exhausted.
Ursula felt a tingle of fear run up her spine-- she knew. She was too perceptive to be clueless about what he meant. And still....
"H- Had to do what, Claude?"
His eyes had practically closed with the recoil of the mental strain leaving him drained, "...Make you....like me. You...are a Lupine, Ursula, like me. We are Lupines."
His eyes shut, he fell forward and sagged against her in a deep sleep. As their bodies collided, a spark of Magic lit between them, running over them both before fanning out and connecting with the rest of the pack.
All Claude heard was the sound of his system before loosing complete and absolute consciousness.
DING!
[Multi-Species Pack Requirement Met!]
[Pack Bond Unlocked!]
[Pack Boost Active!]
DING!
[New One of One Title Unlocked: The Second Progenitor of Romulus.]
[10 Stat Points Available!]
DING!
[Pack Status Established!]
[Lupine Alpha Position Unlocked!]
[Lupine Alpha PowerSet Unlocked!]
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
_Avatar0FFury_
_Avatar0FFury_ ....Mental Breakdown.....AND.....power achievement???? Yes. Where they both good??? IDK, ive never written a scene like this, lmk if it felt at all like it made sense. Anyway thanks for reading and thanks for the powerstones frenandoi, alex99, toxic99, krissch, warriorwolf, TheLucidParagon, XX_Osiris_XX, Ominous_Reader, Sonius, Bop_, AnnabelleXD, Black_Rabbit4378, Bonb_Crusher, omerford, shadwwolf1928, drachenkInd, Demsura, Arameus, Zombireno and spikeseses!!
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