Essentia Animus

29-Independent Exercises

As Riyxia remained transfixed upon her own thoughts, a second howl echoed in reply to the first. Taking reflection of the sound, she realized that simply ignoring it as background might not be the best course of action.

Riyxia got up and started making her way back with a sense of urgency, but it was too late. No more than a few steps later, she discovered she was in fact surrounded by a pack of beasts. Unless there were more hiding behind the rocks, which was certainly a possibility, she expected there was no less than a dozen of the things, maybe even a score. Gray manes cloaked their presence fairly efficiently, while her own colored outfit stood out as plain as day, making it very obvious why the hunters frequently opted to wear gray colors. The beast stood on all fours, though she wasn't going to fall for such expectations twice, she knew better than to expect they would remain on all fours at all times. It wasn't the same kind of beast either, which alone was fortunate given the numbers. First of all, these things stood no taller than her thighs, and would still be a bit shorter than her were they actually capable of standing on their hind legs. However, they looked fast, seemed keenly capable in claw and fang, and had her vastly outnumbered.

The first of them charged her, keen on testing her abilities. This beast found itself suddenly slowed in its approach, getting a rising kick to the snout once it was in range, followed by a descending kick in its reversal. She then decreased its resistance to kinetic force, and kicked it into the air, sending it flying abnormally far down the mountain face, to then shatter on impact with a protruding rock. That was one down. A second charged her, along with two friends. The concept that her gift could be reversed was something she was becoming keenly aware of, she could grant or withdraw strength, grant or withdraw speed. Endurance, resistance, many such things she could give or take away. However, her gift was also capable of giving healing, mending wounds. She turned her gift on the middle of the ones charging her, which suddenly convulsed before her, knocking down it's peers, before otherwise dying unexpectedly. It had a wound set open the entire length of its body, the whole thing unmended, it's life pouring from it rapidly in no less than a moment. While it's peers staggered, so too did she, a wound like that would have taken a lot to mend, and it likewise took a lot from her to unmend. Her moment of weakness, and the faltering of the few sent to charge, was enough to inspire the rest of the pack, as she found herself suddenly swarmed.

With no ability to lead with her gift, she led with her form, jumping into the air over a couple of them and spinning around to strike them from behind. Without her gift, the wounds were not so dramatically fatal, but her natural ability was still remarkable, having removed a beast's leg in that single strike. Without alternative, she set into her foes like a feral beast herself, tearing her foes apart with a natural ferocity, practically snarling herself in the process. Before the beasts could regroup, they had 5 more dead, 3 critically injured. The last two visible that remained yet unharmed started to back away slowly, suddenly not liking these odds, the three critically injured were hardly able to move at all, whimpering in pain. Riyxia took the opportunity to catch her breath, waiting to see if they were trying to have her drop her guard, or if they would really retreat. One of the injured close to her though tried to snap at her, getting its head dislocated instead. The other two started to cry out.

Suddenly leaping before the two unharmed beasts was one measurably bigger, spanning well over her own height even on all fours. It didn't take much insight to be aware that this would be the pack's leader, a beast which looked visibly enraged, snarling at her with a venomous glare. She backed away from the two injured at her feet and adopted a pose ready for a strike. This one looked tough enough that she couldn't expect her casual strikes to be as effective, she would have to make use of her gift in order to achieve any results at all. The leader in turn stepped beyond the injured, visibly protecting them from further harm. She considered this personally unjust, they were the ones who attacked her, even if most of them were dead as a result. She didn't even want to stick around anymore, but no one was letting her go.