Author's Note: Okay, last member of our five man band for the story, next chapter we start looking at their adventures together.


Chapter 5: The Beast

"Chancellor, I did not murder my entire family and sacrificed them to the gods to be told 'I could not do things'"

Necromancer Kain, shortly before transitioning into Revenant Kain.

"Have you calmed down yet? Boy?"

I have been trying to elude the Predator for several hours now, however he consistently manages to out run me and intercept me. Frustrating.

"Do I need to chop off your horns again?"

"Those are antlers not horns." The demon appeared next to the Predator.

I have not forgotten how you have fooled me creature of below. You will not do so again!

"You should at least get the terminology right when you are threatening someone."

The Predator swung my blood off of the shiny claw his kind are inclined to using while the Demon prepared one of her curses.

"Bind!" At the demon's command her curse activated and dug it's hooks into my body and damn it...! My body shrieked in pain as muscle and bone shrunk down and all the hair from my 'Beast' form was shed.

"If you can't control it then I'm going to transfer it out of you." The Demon, Morgan stated as I got into a sitting position.

"Apologies for loosing my temper." I held up my hands to her and clapped them together in a apology.

"For gods sake boy put some pants on before you get accused of sleeping around again." Morgan snapped as she threw me some pants. You're the main reason I've been accused of sleeping around though. Still putting on the clothing I had a look around the destroyed buildings.

"Did I kill anyone this time?"

"No. Charming was here, and besides the point we brought you out to the middle of no where like this for this exact reason." Morgan stated leaning against one of the few walls still standing.

"Well that was some good news." As I said that I was floored by a blow to my face.

"You knucklehead, at least when Rose was the one who was cursed she was only a threat to herself. You on the other hand are also a threat to everyone around you."

"Well not everyone." Charming stated examining the edge of his blade where he used it to carve through my tendons when I was still in Beast form. "I won't speak for you but I can certainly give him a run for his money."

"He gets stronger the longer the transformation persists, and since Unleashed is an aspect it gets stronger the more he uses it. But unless he can also learn control then all that we're going to wind up with a progressively more horrible and less controllable monster." Well she wasn't wrong anyway. Still wasn't hearing a lot in the way of solutions.

"There might be a way, remember the Huntsman boy?"

"I'm sorry you want to try and reverse engineer a aspect?" Morgan asked the look on her face that of plain and simple incredulity.

"Why not? Send him up against the same monster and get the same result out it." Charming stated before Morgan slapped herself in her face.

"Um sorry but..." The two looked down and glared at me. "What are you talking about?"

I always admired Heroes of the stories I read growing up. I understand that it's a sore topic with the people of Bosheit, the crusades, the infiltration, the assassination attempts as they call them but I remain firm in my admiration. I can't damn those people without knowing the circumstances of their situation, but there is still plenty to admire. Just for perspective I read the books that the Night Witch wrote about the 'villains' of those stories. Some were just the victims of circumstances, others though were just jerks, or unhinged lunatics, or some other mentally unstable person. They needed putting down, and there were individuals who stepped up to fill those roles. At the same time though he read about good people in those books, people who defended their lands or acted in the interest of the prosperity of their people. And there were more than a few Heroes with something broken inside, take his 'charming' mentor for instance.

"More training?" Rose and I had lived together ever since the ritual, the one that transferred her families curse to me when we took one another's first time. I had done so in a manner that it would be made public. As Rose's father passed down the curse from him to Rose when she was born so too would any child of mine with Apple, and somehow the royal family of Ever After suddenly starting to transform into hairy abominations one day seemed to bode poorly for the kingdom's future prosperity. And seeing her again now I understood I made the correct call, she was so frail even without the monster inside of her that one of these days the transformation would rip her in half.

"No sweat. Me and Hunter are just gonna take a stroll through the woods and find what I need to get the big guy under control and then head right back here. Bang bang all better." I kissed her on her forehead as I took my prepared sack of supplies and went off. There wasn't much food, not like I could pack enough to satisfy the Beast anyway, and besides where I was going there would be more then enough.

"For the record: I don't approve of taking you to see the Ancient One." The Hunter and the Beast? What a pair we make, sitting in the carriage as we approach the edge of the Winter Woods. Not so wintry right now, considering this was the spring all all that. "If the Night Witch didn't vouch for you we wouldn't even be having this conversation." The Hunter kept his grip firm on his halberd, ready to split my skull with it at a moment's notice.

"Right. Charming mentioned something about a monster?"

"The Ancient One is no monster, and if you try to hurt him I swear I'm going to split your bloody skull open right now!" Hunter snapped glaring at me angrily.

"Then what is he she or it?" I ask ponderously, trying to get a grasp on the various inter-dimensional squatters living in Bosheit was almost as hard as talking to the lunatics who worship them, and it appeared Hunter fitted into that category.

"He is someone who gives a damn, not something you hear often in Bosheit." Hunter replied, which while it implied good things it was still vague enough to be unhelpful.

"I'm going to need more details."

"There is a arrangement." Hunter stated rolling his eyes. "People who go into the woods and pass his trials gain knowledge of the hunt, power to rival the monsters of these lands, pivotal tools of survival." Hunter stated making his opinion clear.

"And those who don't?" I asked cocking my brow suspiciously.

"The trial involves flesh stripping birds and man eating wolves. Figure it out." Hunter stated letting the implications hang in the air.

"And your happy with this arrangement?" The Ancient One sounded pretty monstrous to me.

"Look around you Daring. This entire country is covered in dung, piss and gore. Everything is either dead, dying or surviving by the skin of their teeth. I had eight siblings when I was born, now I have none." The implications of that were very, very clear.

"Is this Ancient One Responsible for this?" Daring asked though he suspected he knew the answer.

"Some. Not all. We live here because if we don't the entire continent will be like this, survival demands sacrifice." The Carriage stopped, and Hunter opened the door. "It's a lesson you're going to have to learn the hard way."

Well that was ominous. Well Hunter wasn't wrong, the dead did 'live' here, their wailing souls and dark masses flying through the air. Then Daring was greeted by the sound of creaking wood and went to draw his sword.

"So you must be the 'Ancient One' then?" Tall, even taller then the Beast and made entirely out of wood and bone, the skull of a massive creature that could have been a moose sat where a head should be were this thing human. "Okay. So what do you want?"

"White fur and red eyes." The Ancient One gestured deeper into the woods. "Bring me their hearts."

Okay... I noted he wasn't very specific, he guessed anything that had white fur and red eyes. For lack of a better lead I followed where he had pointed, and was rewarded with the sight of a giant killer gorilla, red eyes in it's head and white fur on it's back, so he'll do. I did remember my lessons on swordsmanship, wasn't exactly applicable to hunting monsters, but I made do, baiting attacks, dodge rolling at the last possible moment and then hacking my way through tendons to bleed the thing out and then ran it through the neck. I took it's heart after that. Seemed like a shame to leave behind the corpse, but that was the way of creatures that lived here. Something would be getting to eat it soon enough. Still that thing had said Hearts, I knew I wasn't getting out of this with just one.

"Grrr...!" The next one was a pack of wolves.

That was cute, they actually thought they stood a chance. I brandished my shield and plowed right through them, I found the biggest among them and I slammed my fist into his face empowered by Name energy and sent him face first into the ground. As a additional bonus I discovered one of the white ones among the pack quickly swung my sword to finish it while the others fled while I took it's heart. I was swarmed by the birds later, which I admitted would be distressing if it wasn't for steel plate blocking shredding claws and pecking beaks. And then I found 'it.'

"Oh... Oh I don't like that." I commented looking up at great tree with a swirling mass of the black souls swimming around in the sphere above it. "I take it this is your doing 'Ancient One?'"

"Do you have what I told you collect?" I tossed the bag with hearts inside to the monster. Only two, he didn't seem to care for my offering as he responded by kicking the bag over to a pack of his monsters to tear open and eat. "Do you understand?"

"I have to do homework now too?" I grumbled making my displeasure known.

"If a lesson is not derived from a trial then it is meaningless." The ghastly tree creature replied bluntly. "What do you know about the creatures you killed."

"Albino's, they have genetic defects affecting their eyes and skin that makes them susceptible to skin cancers and sun burns and they have either really bad eye sight or are outright blind. They're typically killed by hunters because they can pass these defects on to the rest of their species. Which makes absolutely no sense since it would make the nightmares living in this cursed place easier to deal with."

"Then you have learned nothing." I felt the hit before I saw it coming, a mass of tree roots and wood slammed into my abdomen and sent me flying, luckily this armour was designed for someone much bigger than me, it had many plates folded on top of one another and it slid into place as I transformed.

"Unleash!" I roared in provocation as I glared with contempt at this lands Alpha, he did not look so big now, taller than I yes but only half as wide. I ran over feet over knuckle as I slammed my shoulder into the mass of dead wood's body and grabbed him by his arm, slamming him into the ground repeated until the arm came off and he was splinters. "Puny God."

"I thought I smelled something on you." Another tree creaked to life and another Alpha emerged from dead wood. "One of them masquerading as one of us? Or one of us as one of them?" The Alpha swung his staff and a swarm of the black things came from the sky to swoop at me. Where flesh was exposed from the shell the pecked and clawed, where they came within reach I grabbed and stuffed my mouth, crunching and bloody. I made my way through the black things and came at the Alpha swinging. The wood moved to grab me and pin me in place. "How ironic that this creature understands when you consider your other self the civilised one. Lets try this again." The Alpha grabs me by my head and makes me look at him in the dead hollows of his eyes. "What do you know about the ones you killed?"

"Weak. Should've eaten them, they become strong then." The Alpha flicked me in the head and I could feel my other self bubble up and take control instead. "Is that suppose to be a virtue to espouse?"

"It is how the world works, ignorant child." The monster stated rubbing down his staff. "Strong consume the weak, the strong becomes stronger while the weak becomes part of the strong: both parties benefit. Strength passes to the next generation and the cycle repeats." I look to the mass of dead souls and my brows furrowed. "Is that what happened to Hunter's people? You've been farming them, sifting the 'weak' from the 'strong.' Using one to empower the other?" I ask as I felt rage bubble in my throat.

"So you do understand." The monster stated letting out a chuckle.

"That's barbaric!"

"Yes. It is. But mercy is the virtue of the strong, if not by my hand then they die by claw or fang or disease and fire. Everything lives by feeding off of something else. Do you not consume vegetation no less alive than you are? Do you not consume the flesh of those beneath you? Do your people not pay the taxes for your suit of armour? For your weapons?" How the hell does this thing know what Taxes are? "My ways are different then yours. Your enemies ways are different from yours. Your allies ways are different from yours. Being Named carries the implications that you know better then them, and have been given the chance to prove it in the debate of blades, and blood and magic! Now what do you know?" The monster was squeezing the chunk of wood in his hand, bits falling off of it as he shaped it bare handed like it was a ball of clay.

"I think that if you're gonna call yourself a hero, then you better start acting the part!" It was what I told Morgan when she was looking for volunteers to take Rose's curse before it killed her. I didn't have any regrets then, and I don't have any now. "Unleash!" I feel my eyes change as I grow out of the restraints.

"A good answer." The Alpha floored me and used the sharp end of it's staff to carve open a hole in my chest before ripping out a mass of flesh therein and shoving inside the wooden mass he had been moulding and healing the wound closed, wooden heart knitting itself in place.

"This... Changes... Nothing! I... Will... Break You!" Then the monster started laughing as I felt the birds swarm around me and spat me back outside of the forest at Hunter's feet.

"Oh boy. It's not usually a good thing when he starts laughing like that." No duh.

Morgan had me slung over a stone tablet when I woke up, magical light going over my body as she studied me for an answer as to what was happening.

"Well, your heart's been replaced by a block of wood." Morgan stated as if the most normal thing in the world. "The Leshen seems to have taken a liking to you."

"That thing is called a Leshen? What exactly is a Leshen!?" I noticed at least that my chest still wasn't hacked open, whatever that creature had done it at least partially undid it.

"Various people debate that question, a lot. The most common theory is that it's a amalgam of the spirits of those who have died in the woods that was then absorbed by a tree to become a proper entity. The issue here is that it won't stay dead long enough to conduct a proper autopsy."

"I'm so glad that the fact that I have a piece of a wood monster in my chest can satisfy your curiosity." I stated as I thought about what I saw. "Was that... huge pile of souls there the Leshen or was the skull tree thing it?"

"Neither. A Leshen is not a amalgam of human souls, if it is one at all, rather as a result of the bitterness of the forest. The insects stomped by a running dear, the rabbit hunted by the fox." The hundreds if not thousands of animals hunted in mass by humans every year. "All that lives wants to continue living, when that life is cut short bitterness is born and is drunk up by the forest, giving birth to spirits that can be considered the embodiment of those feelings of bitterness." Hence that speech about how the strong lives off of the weak. It wasn't being told from the point of view of one of the strong, it was being told from the point of view of one of the weak.

"What about the human souls?"

"Humans believe in the after life tended to by their gods." Morgan stated bluntly prompting me to fill in the blanks.

"Is the Leshen a god to you?" I asked brow raised suspiciously.

"One of many. The Leshen has created it's own afterlife." I clench and then clench my fist.

"What does the Leshen do with the souls. Eat them?"

"It's not a demon child. Thinning a soul, squeezing it like an orange for power is more efficient then outright feeding off of them. Yes it will yield less immediate power, but the trade off is that you can do that as many times as you want so long as you give it time to restore that power." Bigger priorities Daring. Bigger and far more personal.

"What does this hunk of wood he shoved into me do?"

"It's a phylactery, it will allow your mind to astrally leave your body behind and take control over it remotely."

"Does that include when I'm in Beast form?" Morgan nodded her head in the affirmative. "There are certain magics and alchemical concoctions that can help you to regrow your heart, assuming that you aren't planning on fighting the Leshen to try and get it back." I clenched and unclenched my fist.

"In his domain, while he has me by my balls, with my trump card depending on his power? No I think not." But all he had to do was be patient. After all every Beast has it's day.


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