“Achilles, what took so long?” he shouts.So that’s Achilles.
Perseus runs ahead and I can’t make out what they are saying. Achilles pauses their conversation when he notices me moving toward him.
“You must be the newrecruit,” he says.
“Yep this is our new chew toy, Evander,” Frida replies, teasingly.
“Well let’s see what he can do then. Perseus you’re up and try not to kill him,” Achilles remarks, getting right to business.
“I can’t promise anything, you know that. Anyways, isn’t the point to see what he is capable of?” Perseus replies.
When I step onto the training ground, the others gather around. Without warning Perseus lunges at me.
“Duck,” the wolf shouts as Perseus punches me in the face with such force that he breaks my jaw. As I fall to the ground, Frida shouts.
“What the hell, Perseus that was uncalled for.”
“Do you think the enemy is going to take it easy or wait for you to be ready? If you can’t handle what I’m about to throw at you, then you’re as good as dead already,” he retorts, sneering at me.
Not giving me a second to rebut, as I’m still on the ground, with my jaw shattered and in searing pain, he kicks me hard in the ribs, breaking a few of them, before picking me off the ground by my neck as a smirk crosses his face, he throws me across the ring.
“Come on, Achilles, even you know that he’s taking this too far!” Frida starts to shout, but gets cut off.
“No, Perseus is right, if he is going to survive then he needs to always be ready to defend himself,” Achilles replies sternly looking on.
As those words reach me I feel a strange heat enveloping my jaw.
CRACK.
The pain is gone and it’s just like new again. What? Then the same heat envelopes my chest as I feel shifting andpopping in my torso, as if my ribs are realigning and healing.
What the hell?
Perseus lunges at me again, but this time as he swings, I catch his fist. Pissed off by the sneak attack, “If you’re not going to fight back I will.”
As my fist then swings by itself, I notice that it’s covered in the black fur again, and the huge, razor sharp claws are back.
Connecting with his chest, I send him flying across the training ground and into the side of a building. I step back and look at my hands, astonished and frightened by what just happened.
“Yes, that’s what you get for pushing him too hard, dumbass,” Frida shouts, then laughs.
Looking down at my hand, back in control, I move my fingers around, and watching as the claws move instead is a weird feeling.
As the anger subsides, the hair and claws slowly fade back to my normal hand.
“What the hell was that?” I ask.
“That was your wolf taking over and giving you a partial transformation,” Achilles tells me. “It happens when you’re in danger and either don’t respond or can’t defend yourself. When you learn to control your wolf, you can make these partial transformations happen at will and use them to increase your agility, speed, hearing, sight and as you just saw power. The hardest part about controlling your power is having the presence of mind to will the transformation in the presence of evil. As you already know, your wolf’s will is strong and he will fight you for control. He only wants one thing and that’s to destroy all evil. Which is why we train likethis, so you can learn to work with your wolf spirit, without it fighting you for control.”
“Perseus, are you still alive over there?” Lucius shouts.
With a groan he staggers to his feet.
“So that’s how you want to play is it?” Perseus sneers. He squares off to me and closes his eyes, then dashes to his left. In a mist of red, and in a flash of silver, I’m slammed to the ground.
Crouched over me with his claws on my throat is a deep silver fur-covered werewolf. It lowers its head, snarling as he lets out a powerful roar that’s deafening. The sight of his giant fangs in his maw are a sight straight from a horror movie.
“Perseus calm down, I’m not going to tell you again,” Achilles calmly mutters.
