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Ember watched Bullet leave, she wanted to follow her, but she felt the need to stay with Frost. She didn't want to leave her with the plant wolf...no matter how much they knew each other. Her ears twitched when she heard the commands of Frost as she told them that they were to to back to the lake with the deer, and rest and eat there.

She nodded her head and followed Frost as fast as she could go with the injured paw, glad that Frost was going at a good steady pace that she could keep up with. As she followed her she would listen back and smell the air for the plant wolf, to make sure she was there, and that she wouldn't try attacking again.

The trek up the steady slope was longer than the way they went earlier, but it was a lot easier on her foot. A slight smile came to her maw as she realized that Frost really did care...even though they started off on the wrong foot in the beginning. They soon came to the rise and peered over the mountain down at the deer and lake, and made their way down. Ember smelled the air happily, she hated the dark damp cave they were in, she shuddered at how small the spaces were. She was just glad that she was too out of energy or anything to even bother or care at the moment, if she had plenty of energy still she would be thrashing around the cave making it collapse even more.

Her ears perked up when Frost told them to go wait by the water while she went to go kill the deer, and Ember looked at her like as if she was crazy for a second. She was about to retort and say that she could help, but a jolt of pain made her realize she was in no condition to do so. The plants stun spores were already wearing away, so she nodded to Frost as the wolf went off to catch a deer.

While Frost stalked off, Ember walked in the other direction to the lake. She needed to rejuvenate her blood pelt...and she wanted to get away from Marta. Once at the lake she stepped in it a little and her blood pelt soon regained its glossy look of red, instead of the red brown mud look that she got from the sun. She took a quick drink and laid in the grass waiting for Frost.

Her ears perked up when she heard an unfamiliar howl, it must have been Frost. Ember stood up and looked to see that Frost had taken down an old deer, all on her own and felt triumphant about it.

Ember joined her in the howl and slowly bounded over to Frost, "Great job." She said as she nuzzled the white wolf's side.

Frostridge stiffened as the Blooded-One nuzzled her side; she was still uncomfortable with any sort of physical contact. Thought she was starting to realize just how much her race communicated through touch...

She was feeling rather embarrassed at her sudden lapse of protocol...howling had never really been something she had done, though she had heard and seen it before rarely. But she could still almost feel the howl reverberating in her chest and it felt...good.

She gave a look at Marta in reply to her snarky comment, then nodded at Bloody, blue-eyes calm once more. Where she had feeled the frail deer was right near the water's edge, and not too far from the treeline. She felt some pride in her carefully laid plan working so well. But for right now, she wanted to find where her blade was. "You, eat. I be back." she said quietly, trotting off to investigate.

Trailing along the edge of the lake, she eyed the clear water warily; her previous experience had not been forgotten, though with how long it stayed shallow, the white sand underneath and her new found logic, it seemed unlikely any dark shape would be able to creep up on her beneath the waves...

A smell of a rotten corpse exuded her nose and she followed it; sure enough, the dead Altered fish that had left her the wound' on her shoulder lay prone, flies buzzing around it. She unceremoniously scuffed some dirt over it; without the incendiary capsules of her dagger, this was the best she could do at the moment.

As she continued to search, she caught a familiar scent. Streak's. Twin-Tails, but old. The big Black one... Where were they? She frowned in dis-consolation.

She surveyed but the scents had faded, and her Chain-Fang was no where to be found. Had one of them taken it? She didn't know what to do...

Without much choice, she turned and started to return when something caught her eye and she froze.

The white-wolf was back.

It stood on the other edge of the shore a few meters away from her, looking out over the waters, ignoring her. As if made of an ethereal mist, the fur at the edges of its shoulders and feet where wispy like smoke, disappearing into the air. Dumbfounded she watched. It was not Arrow, but it certainly reminded Frost of her...

Then suddenly, it turned and started away towards where the sheer rock cliff walls met the other side of the lake.

Without even realizing it, Frost was chasing after her, some desperate need to confront this strange ghost before her...

Ember looked up at Marta as the wolf pulled away from the deer while she herself continued to eat a little more. She was really hungry after using all that energy, and after a few more bites she licked her bloody jaws...well used to be bloody. The blood pelt sucked up the blood that would get stained to her jaw, so there was really no need for her to lick her jaw.

As she looked at the plant wolf as she made her way to the waters edge, and Ember walked to the shadows of the trees in the grass. She preferred to stay out of the sun even though it was going down at that moment, it had certainly been a long day.

Ember hadn't noticed Frost run off because she was too preoccupied watching the plant wolf. She felt a sudden prob in her mind and twitched her ears, she glared at the wolf knowing it was her.

She wondered what the wolf was trying to search for, but just as soon as she had felt the throb it was gone just as fast. Wonderment went through her mind at how skillful this wolf was, but Ember had been able to detect it right away so she was quite sure that the plant wolf didn't get much. Though she looked up from where she lay as the wolf soon came back and rolled around in the grass trying to dry herself off after cleaning her fur. Ember smiled, she never had to do much, it dirt or anything like that got stuck in her fur the blood would just easily push it out. Her fur barely every got dirty.

Confusion came to her thoughts as the plant wolf sat in front of her and asked her how she knew about Frostridge. She had no idea that there was a Frostridge, then after a quick thought process she figured the wolf must have been talking about Frost. "I met her when I first joined the pack...which was like two suns ago. Her and I didn't start out so great with each other, but after today she seems to trust me more." Ember's voice was calm but cool, like the darkness of the night.

"So yes, I don't know her as long as you do." Ember stated cooly, then lifted up her head higher looking around for the white wolf. When she didn't see the familiar white coat she knew something was wrong, Frost was gone.

The wolf got further away as she found herself winding past another ridge of rocks, the water of the lake lapping against the stone walls. The ledge became narrower and narrower, till suddenly it opened into a ravine, hidden by the rocks. It was deep; possibly connected to the ravine from before, atop the plateau?...

There the ledge began to go down like a slope carved by nature alone. Far below she saw he wolf, now as if aware of her presence paused, as if waiting. This smelled like a trap, but as if hypnotized by some silent, siren's call, she went onward...

After a long while down, the darkness was near pitch black, making it difficult even for her optic augments to see. Her paws finally reached the bottom, where the ravine was widened out, a huge narrow ridge below... She looked up, a narrow slit of night sky dotted with stars the only poor lighting she had.

Their was a quiet wind behind her and she turned; drifting like smoke, the wolf was waiting; it pulled deeper into the darkness a faint glowing white... and she mesmerized, followed, deeper into a tunnel leading underground.

It stopped and she did as well, then hesitantly came closer. Without warning it vanished and the spell seemed to break. Frostridge snapped out of whatever trance she had been in, confusion apparent. Was this some sort of hallucination? Was she still under the throes of Altered blood? Was meeting Marta, the cave, everything just all in her head? No. questioning it was not the answer; reality or not, she had to find her way back up and so she turned to go.

There was a growling in the pitch blackness.

Two pale glowing yellow eyes appeared in the darkness.

There was a shuffling of movement as it skittered along the floor; instint alone saved her as she ducked a scythe-like blade of bone, the edges glinting in the pititful lighting.

Frostridge was not prone to panic, but she was prone to thinking very, very quickly in such situations, throwing all maybes and what-ifs out the window in exchange for precise thought; She was at a severe disadvantage. She could see almost nothing, her Chain-Fang was gone, she had not eaten or rested. She had to try to disable it and make a break for it- She threw on her Overcharge, sidestepping a giant...something which slammed into the ground.

The sudden dazzling glow of her markings nearly blinded her and she caught a flash of her foe; grotesque and mutated, feathers and bone and fur and teeth and fangs and distorted, wounded flesh- And that faint smell, that same hated familiar smell of an Altered. What class it was, she didn't know, but she caught the sight of the dead Avian class and Hunter class that had been dumped down here earlier, now as if melted on the back of something with long scaly legs into yet another being, creating some horrible mess of a beast straight out of hell.

A tentacle lined with ridges of sharp bones shot from the darkness; she anticipated it and dodged, ignoring the pain as she bit down, crunching through it with her overpowered jaws-

Suddenly the lights went out and she gasped as pain ripped through her body.

The Overcharge had run out. The strain made her joints pop at the sudden abrupt stop of the flow of energy, her veins burned, the repercussions of all the uses she had had recently finally falling on her on the most inconvenient of times. A leg slammed into her sending her flying, colliding painfully with a wall- she saw stars and the sound as it scuttled slowly closer to finish the job...

Suddenly she was no longer in the ravine. Blinking, she stared up at a huge, tubular glass tank filled with greenish-looking water, back on the same island in the dark underground cavern, with its twisting entanglement of ice and machine. As if she had somehow leaped back to this moment in her hallucinating dreams...

The white wolf bobbed peacefully within as she leaned against the glass with her fore paws; a feeling of longing- separated by glass, but it might as well have been the moon... The nightmarish things in their white coats scuttled closer-

Then its eyes opened.

The glass cracked but did not shatter, a pulse of power knocking the approaching foes back like a shockwave; brilliant white light blinding-

And just abruptly, she was in the thick of battle once again- the thick, crab-like leg she could hear whistling above her ready to crush her skull.

She would not die here.

There was a strange screech as the blow was suddenly stopped; it was impossible to see why but she didn't bother to stop and check why, all she knew was she was running away in the opposite direction as fast as her trembling, agonized legs could carry her.

As she reached out into the dimly lit corridor of the ravine with the stars above her she stumbled, sprawling painfully. She could here it thrashing after her, rocks skittering and echoing noisily as it came-

In the starlight it seemed even more hideous; like a giant mutated hermit crab, the two dead altered now adhered to its back as it reanimated their limbs. She had never encountered one, but she had heard of it...A Hoarder class. Rare, not as hostile as a brute, but dangerous with their ability to reanimate dead altered, adhering them to its own mass like a protective shell. Liked dark dank areas like sewers caves, and abandoned cities...

She could run no further. This was her final battle. But she would fight as if she wanted to live- As it leapt towards her, time seemed to slow.

And something very curious began to happen.

She could feel power, energy, something begin to well up within her; for a moment she thought she was hallucinating, or by some miracle, her human placed augments were beginning to turn back on but no; her body still felt weak and drained and her markings stayed unlit. But there was no denying; like a tidal wave, it gained momentum-

Once again the claw was coming back down; and suddenly, she felt very calm, she felt very cold-

Her eyes glowed with a faint white-blue light-

Ice rippled up from the ground in a glittering spike, impaling the incoming attack, rising like a linear spike trap, more small patches of ice ripped up underneath the creature, piercing the beast's soft underbelly; she saw one go through its eye as it gave a dying shriek, but she was already falling on her side as the energy left her.

How long she lay she wasn't sure but finally after an eternity, she got back up, numb and beyond bewildered. So much had happened but this, this topped them all. Was this a hallucination? It certainly didn't feel like it- dreams weren't supposed to hurt.

Then what was that? she had never experienced it before- some strange ability the humans had never told her about?

Almost drunkenly, she stumbled away from the dead beast; the ridge leading back up was almost comically just beside her; she started up, her thoughts slow and unsure.

Never in her life had she ever experienced such a thing; never had she felt that strange calm energy.

You've done well. I'm so proud of you.

Her eyes widened as a voice not her own echoed in her head. "What..." she breathed aloud, but there was no reply.

She must be going crazy; somewhere along this turmoil she had reached the top of the ravine and was running away, running back towards who, towards what she didn't know-

After a bit the good old firm part of her kicked in and she skidded to a halt, lungs heaving. Frost forced herself to sit, to breathe and relax. After a moment, she opened her eyes and tried to sift through all the new information, all the stuff that had happened-

No. She had to eat, she had to sleep. There would be time for all of that later. Sanity and questions and all of it would just have to wait till she took care of her body she had ignored far too long.

She didn't know how, but she somehow made it back to her kill. Famished she tore into it with a brutality and sloppiness most unlike her, filling her gullet. The others were gone but she couldn't bring herself to care, to even think about it at this moment. Everything she knew was falling apart and only her stubbornness and will was holding her together.

Exhausted almost beyond death, she staggered over to the base of a tree and slumped down, asleep before her head touched the ground.

After two hours of fruitless searching, she finally found a scent trail, only an hour or so old.

Heading right back towards where she started with the carcass.

Cursing vehemently, she turned back around in a simmering anger. She really had not been wanting to get up to make this effort in the first place; then Sno-cone had to go and wander off past check-back time...

As she neared, she saw a white shape huddled at the base of a tree, grumbling to herself she trotted closer.

She seemed utterly exhausted, a rather vulnerable state Marta was unused to seeing. So just where have you been hiding, Fridge? she asked dryly through a telepathic bubble but their was no answer and she expected none.

Suddenly curious as before, she gave a tentative tap on the sleeping mind; her mental defenses still as imposing as ever, but slightly weakened in her current state...with a little touch-

As she sent out a "feeling" pulse of a brain-wave to better assess and see if she could find a crack she could worm through, she felt something. A separate consciousness above them.

Snapping up her head, she caused the branches to grow instantly, to wrap around whatever had the audacity to hide there- A familiar shape greeted her eyes and a slightly sadistic grin crossed her face; the old deceptive fury bubbling in her green eyes. "Well hello 'dog'. Fancy meeting you here." Her voice was cold and smooth, like velvet wrapped around an iron fist.

She sighed heavily as the branches wrapped around her. Her mind already knowing the attackers mind she easily connected. But instead of attacking again she walked the line that was between the wolf and the tree. With focus she moved the mind's connection to a nearby tree. The newly infected tree began sprouting limbs and growing in a strange way as if trying to cover something that lay upon it. As the other tree grew the first tree shrunk slowly back to normal, the branches releasing Scarlett. Once the tree was back to normal she expanded her mental shields around herself, the tree, and the sleeping wolf. Though Frost would have no affects of the shield other than having external mind protection, and only due to how close she was to the object. Nothing around or under the tree could be mental manipulated as long as she kept focused. She paid no attention to either wolf, only adjusting better to ignore them as she laid her head back down.