as I moved through town having achieved a point in the book where my skill was strong enough to do battle I decided to pick a target. I noticed when first coming into the town that the lycans patrol the town and I wasn't exactly sure how many there were. I moved towards their camp out for guarding the town. the plan was to draw them out to the woods and test my capabilities. I flashed my eyes at them and they both took an interest and followed me. as I made my way into the woods I heard their heart beats and blood pressures rise as they started their surge to change. I moved faster straight into the shadows and shifted as I did. my scent though gave me away and I ended up losing the element of surprise and before I knew it I was in a difficult battle. I moved to attack the first one and wound up in the dirt as he flipped me and lunged his clawed hand towards me. the key to the shadow rythm was speed. the faster you were the better the technique became. I wasn't fast enough to use it's full effects but I was fast enough to dodge their attacks and return attacks. as I dodged the one about to rip my throat and drop kicked him letting the urge to state my dominance rip through my vocal cords as a roar the second one blind sided me hitting me at the waist as he tackled me. we rolled over eachother in the dirt and as he was about to be in the position for the killing blow I moved again as fast as I could like a shadow and shifted position to behind him. I dug my claws in feeling the flesh give way like jelly and the blood splatter up my arm and run warmly down my fingers. I lifted him by the wound I made with my claws and with one arm as the second one rushed me flung him towards him toppling the two of them. I was so intent on fighting I didn't see a third one come out of nowhere and send me cart wheeling through the air to smack hard against a tree snapping my back in the process. the pain was so blinding it was blissful nothing as the world popped back into my senses and I arose to their triumphant cheers of we killed him. they turned and looked at me slowly like deer caught in the head lights of a predator as I lifted my head eyes glowing maroon like bloody ink and water. I moved still shifted towards them and slammed the first one down claws sailing through his throat head flying through the air to the ground as his blood splattered me and everything near it. I turned and roared the roar of an alpha a beast to be reckoned with an enemy to be feared. they trembled as the call scared them to defensiveness and they shifted and charged me. I roared and moved through the shadows behind the first one grabbed his spine and ripped it out using it as a staff to knock the other one sideways and spear him straight through the heart shattering the spinal bone to splinters in the process. I roared as my success rolled through me and the thrill of the hunt and battle burned in my veins, I roared as the urge to state my claim to kill sent my blood into a frenzy, I roared as I announced my war upon my own kind. the battles were yet to come but the time had begun where the kings rule was ending and a new era was to begin. I moved fast through the woods to the hideout I created my body fully healed but the surge taking it's toll fast as it wore out of my system weakening me greatly. my only weakness unlike others of my kind was a full shift like what I did and coming back from the dead drained my stamina and the surge was like adrenaline it wore it out faster to use it. once the surge wore out of my system great pain and weakness was to come after where I was vulnerable incapable of defending myself. I had a hunch of what was to be capable of killing me but I wasn't too sure and I didn't want to chance it. as I made in the cabin my shift dissolved away fur falling out shrinkage of certain body structures and then the pain. it was like fire in my veins spreading from my abdomen straight through my body it was indescribable like being burned from the inside. I felt heavy like lead and so exhausted from the pain alone the agony left me breathless and my muscles spasmed with the weight of my mortal weakness. being half of anything wasn't all it's cracked out to be and it had it's draw backs. I was suffering and I felt the tears as they rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't hear smell or see anything but pain and the world spinning like a fucked up collage. my body ached and I thought even with the blurry pain filled view of the world that I was imagining it but the chick who was sanctioning me was knelt next to me and saying oh dear your a very bad mix indeed and it's best we keep you alive. as spasmed again and the world narrowed in to a hyper tense focus then faded out my body ached groaned and screamed I was sore all over and my muscles were heavy my veins filled with molten lava and my mind weary from pain. I wasn't going to make it cause I wished for death I couldn't begin to describe this pain there was no words and no matter how many times I tell you or anyone reading this it would never be understood unless felt and this is where my story becomes a bit more intense and confounding. I presumed cause of the pain I hallucinated what I wanted to see but in the morning my body felt sore and tense but there she was watching me waiting for me to awake. when she seen I was awake she asked "what was happening to you last night? your temp was extremely high even for our kind and you seemed to be racked with pain and every time I touched you it was like static electricity hitting me as if you were hooked up to static orb." I nodded and decided the truth was best "I'm part vardalak and not any normal vardalak. my mother was born vardalak and shaman which is a native american Wiccan. she can do magic through nature and spirits. she had me with a lycan I don't know and for the longest time she told me my father was some psychopathic human who clearly wasn't. what happened is the blowback from shifting and allowing the virus in my system for too long it doesn't re absorb it like a lycans system would and instead burns it out as if it's an infection. the static electricity is part of my affliction of a half state between life and death and being the son of a shaman with the same gifts. I was nurtured while dead in the womb and was born dead. since then my body is like a bomb sometimes I control my shifts like other lycans and others I can't as if I'm one of the bitten." she nodded glumly and said " you look like.....but it can't be." I was curious at that point but decided I didn't want to hear it. I needed to be active or I wouldn't heal fast so I got up and began doing stuff. I moved through the place cleaning and organizing and accounting supplies and deciding what I would and wouldn't need. I figured because of how vulnerable the virus makes me feel after it's use that I would buy a weapon and needed a blacksmith or someone of that ilk or I would do it myself. I moved through town looking tall had been made about the massacre of the sentinel lycans and what beast could've done that. there was rumour the king was sending his advisor and enforcer Merrick to assess what happened and find the beast that killed them. this was a posable problem for me because I hadn't become proficient in the art enough to be able to mask my presence all together. if only the shaolin master assassin's who used this art were still alive today I would be able to study faster and learn better. they used to have a village but in the battle that gave the king this art he destroyed all of them. he wasn't an option to learn though even though he was the only one left and it wasn't a good idea if i wanted to kill him to be able to learn this art more proficiently. I was headed to the bar and wanted a drink even though no matter it's strength would do nothing for me. I walked in and sat down and I immediately felt watched and as I turned my head there sitting in the back was a man who looked at me dead as I came in. he stared at me and I stared back and then his eyes flashed and there I presumed was my destiny to begin.