Families held the utmost importan both the tribe and the state. The Dynast believed that a united society was less likely to succumb to tyranny, and propagandists worked tirelessly to create a positive image of the rge family, even among same-sex couples. For them, it was the first link in a of unity. Couples found new meaning in life as they solved problems together and raised new lives, learning and befriending other parents. Some couples never waheir children to experiehe same hardships they had, while others simply learned or re-learhy and care for human life.
The Wolf Tribe fully embraced this ideology. They traced their lineage from a siher, even though the first of their number had grown out of her cells. Because of this, the shamans evaluated siblings as a whole, rather than as individuals, when deg which pack to assigo. The weak joihe weak, and the strong flocked to the strong.
Jaeo amend this rule. Even if she had to bend the shamans to her will. A family would remain a family, but it was undeniable that eadividual possessed ualents. No matter how much she loved Ignacy, her precious cub would probably be happier in the Onyxia or Ashbringer packs, siheir warlords were less strict about permitting males to pursue their weird hobbies.
Their fight would be held outside the base to preserve the training grounds. Serious sparriween warlords teo be overly destructive to the enviro. Lacerated One did not hold the highest military rank, but she was equal to most of her named sisters.
They both stripped off their clothes, exposing their fur to the pleasant moonlight and the biting cold. The preparations for their battle attracted the people of Houstad, who hurried home after a busy day. Someone called for the press, and the Champion’s followers swarmed in, eager to see the martial prowess of the other nds. Defenders smmed their great shield into the ground, creating a protective wall to shield the gathering crowd. The sword saints and warlords arrived to witheir kin.
Janine ighe murmurs among the Ice Fangs and Normies soldiers aers who po film the battle. They thought the fight would be one-sided; the warlord bullying a weak woman. Fools. Her sister had survived the fiercest wars and toughehrough the harshest times.
Janine was a mountain of muscles, her arms lohan her short legs; the scars earned in battles were little more than pale lines lost ihickest fur. Her hide could eh gunfire and fmes. Half-turning, she brought her left arm forward to take the brunt of the crepared to wield her right as a precise hammer, shattering her oppo’s elongated muzzle and knog her senseless. Her amber eyes watched the shaman, fishing for any sign of weakness. And by the Spirits, there were many.
Lacerated One shared the bined visage of a male serving as a female’s chew toy and a famine victim. The scar tissue, often reopened in several pces and oozing red, covered her body, adjat ted, torn cuts that left pieces of wet flesh hanging. Her arms and legs were of proper length, but the skin g tightly to the limbs and protruding ribs. She should have been dead, or at least in a healing a, rather than walking bearing such wounds. Even her fur was sodden. But the woman stood strong, never fainting, breathing easily, and in her eyes bzed a fme of fury.
“Be careful, Jani!” Martyshkina yelled from the sidelines, fnked by the sword saints and warlords. “Lacy is tricky!”
Janine nodded in appreciation, sileng her friend. Martyshkina was a traditionalist who often itted devotional pilgrimages and saw the shaman fight in duels firsthand.
Her eyes widened as the shamaed her stance down to the smallest details, even maintaining the same breathing as Janine. Her muscles bulged, growing to mirror the warlord’s, and tendons and ligaments moved in the open wounds.
“Pnning to beat me in my element?” Janine asked incredulously. “If it’s a joke, you won’t enjoy it, sister.”
“Begin!” Alpha roared, and the two closed the distan a single leap.
Fist on fist. Their left arms moved, fag each other, and the wind blew into the faces of the shocked reporters and the cheering Wolfkins as they collided. The shaman’s arm shook; her paw was the first to retreat, sparing her knuckles, and Janine smiled savagely. She was stronger. She didn’t let the shaman escape unscathed; her arm was longer, and the warlord used it to the fullest, keeping up a hail of straight punches. Lacerated One dodged desperately, trying to return the favor, but soon found herself on the receiving end, as a first bludgeoned her on the cheek.
“It’s amazing!” A Houstad bystander cpped his hands as a gust of wind propelled by the blows hit him in the face. “It’s like standing up to an industrial fan! you all flicker so fast?” he asked the warlords.
“This piss is nothing.” Ashbringer waved her paw. “I’m faster.”
“The rge ss makes a passable boxer.” An Orais took himself by the . “This fight is about to end. The differences i and size are far too great.”
“Moron,” Ygrite ughed. “Watch closely. It’s about to begin.”
Janine kicked to the boos of the onlookers, drawing a long, torn line across Lacerated Oorso instead of disemboweling her as she had intended. Are they thinking this is a friendly spar? She ighe distra, fog on the fact that her attack had dos job, f the shaman to step closer.
Their fists were about to ect again, perplexing Janine as to why her named sister hadn’t used her wonderful cws yet. Irrelevant. She decided, and adjusted her punch, pnning to break Lacerated One’s pinky and ring fingers. Her oppo spotted this and moved her arm to avoid the blow. As Janine’s punch flew uhe shaman’s, Lacerated One suddenly elbowed her wrist.
Here it is. The turning point. Ja excited. She shaped her style around defense, using it to learn about her oppo, to bait them into aable mistake, or to grind them down with sheer endurance. Lacerated One made such a mistake. By using her elbow to throw Janine off-bahe shama her up for a powerful punch. And opened herself in turn, as Janine didn’t miss this opportunity and brought down her own hammer, intending to shatter the jaw of her dear named sister.
She frowned, experieng pain in her eye. A spit. Lacerated One spat something into her eye. Janine’s vision dimmed, and the shaman fell onto her back, surprising the warlord. Lacerated One nded on a paw, aher paw whipped, almost nding a heavy blow against Janine’s ankle joint.
What is going on? The rivalry with Martyshkina saved Janine’s butt. She lifted her leg in time to stomp on the shaman’s arm, but her cws only cut the skin as Lacerated One jerked her paw back. This is Marty’s style!
In their many py fights and actual sparring sessions, Janine frequently dominated over her smaller friend. Her fingers were beams of unyielding iron, choking the light from Martyshkina’s eyes; her skin was th to be torn by the desperate g. Marty fumed and raged, but giving up was not in her nature. She studied physiology under Dragena and Terrifid even helped looseongues of most hardened criminals.
From studying the ws of the human body, she learhe ws of her own, mastering the art of a highly mobile teique in which each move could flow smoothly into an uable atta an oppo’s vitals or important joints. Her improvised, ued, and often barely possible whipping strikes brought many girls to their knees, opening them up for her arms to around their necks and strahem into submission. But it happened in their youth! Marty rarely participated in domination matches!
There was no denying it. Lacerated One swung her whole body on the ground, her free paw pointing a ent revolver at Janine’s muzzle. Then she sprang to her feet, releasing her cws for the first time.
The shaman’s cws were unusual; tiny veins of crimson covered them, but it wasn’t what fused her oppo. A double upward thrust. Alpha’s teique. Simple in its iability, when done by the shaman, the teique cked in speed and strength. Janine grabbed the woman’s wrists, stopping the stabs dead iracks.
Pain engulfed her vision as the Lacerated One headbutted her, flowing elegantly from Alpha’s style to Ashbringer’s, never once losing momentum or hesitating, choosing the right teique at the right time. Janine’s nose broke, and the trapped arms slipped from the not-quite-closed grip thanks to the wetness of the fur.
“Soft. Amateur,” Ashbringer grumbled, and Janine uood at st.
The elbow strike. It wasn’t a simple move; Fatima enjoyed using her elbows in bat, wielding them with the same effectiveness as cws. The spit of something resembling sharp hair or a needle was straight from Ygrite’s dishonorable arsenal. Lacerated One switched warlord styles without g, wielding them at her will!
Lacerated Oood on all fours, her fists buried in the ground. Her muscles tensed and blood spurted from open wounds as she prepared to lunge.
“Hey, that’s my teique!” Kaisa ughed from among the ranks of wolf hags he base. “Does that meahinks I’m a warlord? Anji, Lacerated One y move over yours!”
The shaman disappeared, exploding the crete and flying towards Ja utmost speed. She had po ram the warlord in the exposed belly, her arms around Janine’s body, and hook the shoulder bdes with her cws. A k her jaw, stopping the blindingly fast movement. Lacerated Ohrew her head up, spurting blood, but Janine wasn’t finished. Her fists came down on the shaman’s shoulders, smming her deep into the crete. But as she tried to grab the woman by the neck, the shaman slipped back, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. Jaook the opportunity to set her broken nose and blow it clear.
“And it failed immediately.” Anji shook her shoulders.
“That… she didn’t do it right!” Kaisa pined.
“And who did?” Ashbringer inquired, and a booming ughter erupted around the wolf hag.
“You are fighting against a mere shaman, Janine!” Alpha thundered. “Crush her underfoot.”
“There is nothing mere about our sister!” Martyshkina argued. “Go Jani! Break her snout, rip her cws out! Lacerated One, don’t give up!”
“Whose side are you on?” Predaig asked.
“Both!”
Janine briefly breathed through her nose, firming it was still w. She blinked a sharp piece out of her eye, and an agony speared her side. Lacerated One had used the brief window of opportunity to race past her and tore at her side. Janine whirled around, takiless sshes at her cws.
“Was that a rapid motion just now?” Anji asked.
“The what?” Bogdan looked at her.
“Permit me,” said Sword Saint Leonidas. He was sitting in a fy armchair, covered with a fur cloak, and swirling wine in a silver goblet. “Warlord Onyxia had mastered a style based around hounding an oppo during a distra. Imagine blinking, sneezing, or simply having a distrag thought, only to find your arteries severed by cws. It sounds simple in theory; what soldier would not take advantage of su opportunity? But Onyxia has taken it to a whole new level; her divine muscuture allows her to reach top speed from a standing position, and she somehow knows in advance when her enemy will be distracted. Twins only know how she finds an opening for her attacks when fag an armored oppo, but it works every time.” His servant poured him more wine.
“Uncle, please set aside the refreshment,” hushed the metal-legged Ice Fang full battle gear. “You are treating the sanctity of this duel too frivolously.”
“I am not the one rolling naked in the dirt and blood like a barbarian.” Leonidas sipped some wine. “Prealerata, I give this sparring match the exact respect it deserves. But you are correct; we are in Houstad, and I treat my family far too coldly. Drinks for everyone, servants!”
“That’s not what I…”
“Now you speak my nguage, cousin!” Martyshkina snatched a bottle from his squire.
“See? Everyone’s satisfied.” Leonidas fshed a smile to his nied raised his goblet. “Four hundred dynasts on the brave Lacerated Ohe holy sister is feisty tonight.”
“Your childish behavior shames us, Summerspring,” hissed Bertruda.
“Well, it’s about time someone else did it for a ge,” Leonidas replied unabashedly.
“Thirty tokens on Mom,” Ignacy said.
“Seventy dynasts on Jao win,” Alpha decred.
“Twelve dynasts on the warlord’s victory.” Bertruda rolled her eyes.
“Fifty tokens on Lacerated One!” Bogdan announced, pig up a gss. His sisters’ shadows fell on him, and he smiled shyly. “What?” He turo Ignacy, who cracked the knuckles of his natural paw. “I’m just making sure we win one way or annacy, don’t pull out the fmethrower; that’s cheating!”
Ssh at ssh, cut at cut. Their cws woven the deadly patterns fag each other. The ground shook, the crete crag from the stomps and the force of their pushes. her agreed to retreat. In Janine’s mind, she was not fag a single oppo, but the entire swarm of her sisters, stepping in one by oo test her mettle. Here were Predaig’s calm and precise strikes, Eled’s brazen ce, Dragena’s careful cuts, Onyxia’s etherealness, Ashbringer’s ferocity, Martyshkina’s unorthodox movement, and many more. A martial arts chimera that incorporated the fighting styles of the living and the dead. A legacy of sorts.
Lacerated One was not without fws. Her movements cked finesse, as if she had learned a general idea but never really ho. Her imitation of Janine’s punches, hooks, and swings felt more like pebbling than bouldering. She cked the durability and power to match Alpha’s brutal attacks. Still, the shaman deserved praise for her dedication to mastering such skills, and Janine’s heart brimmed with happiness.
She k to be wrong. The st time she had let go, she had murdered one of her dearest people, robbed the tribe of a valuable soldier, and it endangered her own cubs by proxy. Her duties tonight were too important. But as their blows collided, creating waves of air that tore at the guards’ and civilians’ clothes, as her heart pounded with adrenaline, as streaks of blood ran down her legs, Janine could not help but enjoy every sed of this deadly dance.
And da was! The shaman had reached her pure state, unleashing unparalleled aggression on Janine, aiming her blows not to maim but to sughter. A early blinded Jahe cw sliced through her ear, opening her cheek to the bone. Janine responded by kneeing her oppo iomach, and Lacerated One spewed blood into the warlord’s face, clouding her vision.
A bli her growl in pain as her already sshed side exploded in fire anew. As Janine’s eyes opened, her oppo shifted into Eled’s feral style; fangs closing on Jarapezius, cws sinking deep into the warlord’s arms, attempting to pio her torso. The warlord succumbed to her primal instincts and cmped her jaws on the shaman’s shoulder, causing the woman to jerk her neck away to avoid any potential harm.
The rid supernatural blood of her sister sent a fresh surge of adrenalihrough Janine’s body; its taste was intoxig, emp, exquisite. She lived again. Her heart raced even faster, the entire life fshed before the amber eyes, and this saved Lacerated One’s shoulder for Jao loosen her grip on it, too caught up irange sensations. She barely noticed that Lacerated One had torn aiece of her own flesh.
Janine moved her right paw up slowly, as if in a dream, realizing too te that her sister had purposely let herself be bitten to gain an advahrough fusion. However, every dream had to end. The fingers locked around the tormented neck, choke-smming the shaman into the crete, cratering her so hard that jagged rocks rose around the fighters. Lacerated One gasped for air; her paws were already trying to close in on Janine’s arm, f the warlord to release the shaman, or the woman would have sliced open her veins. Still on her back, the shaman pnted her palms on the ground and sprang away with the agility of a cockroach.
She came at her again, switg frena to Ashbrihen to Alpha, and finally to Martyshkina again to evade a swing of cws. The shaman’s feet swiftly maneuvered around Janine, while her fists flickered in an attempt to bypass the warlord’s calm defehey fought for the better part of an hour, painting the gray surface of the ground crimson. They bit and g each other’s flesh, exgiions and cuts, elbowing and pung at the first opportunity.
Years of restraint! Years of being afraid of killing another sister! Eted, Janine smmed her fist into Lacerated One’s shoulder, exploding the grouh her legs. The shaman tried to retreat, and Jaomped, kig out a boulder and elbowing it into Lacerated One’s face. But you ha, right, sister? She thought, she pleaded, as her own stab closed on the wide ope.
“This assable warm-up,” Lacerated One said calmly, stone dust falling from her whiskers.
An agony paralyzed Janine’s body as Lacerated One’s cws pierced four of Jaeats. It was a dirty move, but an effective one, and many Ice Fangs and several Wolfkins shuddered and ged at the thought of it happening to them. The excruciating pain had blinded Janine; she stood ooes against her will, and Lacerated One gaihe distance again, pulling the cw free. Her leg blurred, and the warlasped and vomited in equal measure.
She was kicked. It tossed her off her feet, sending the warlord flying like a onball over the defenders and spttering her against the base’s wall. The impact rocked her insides. She rolled off the wall like a ball, trembling from the reverberations in her bones. Her trembling fingers found the stone, and falling pieces of debris from above surprised her even further. The reinforced crete of the base was supposed to withstand heavy artillery shells. Just how hard did the shaman unch Janine? She wobbled like a drunk and stood up, toug the pulsating hot spot on her side. Ribs cracked.
The supreme shaman stood on ohe other still in the air, her snout calm and focused. A kick. A single kick swatted Janine away like a parasite. Seeing that she was still scious, Lacerated One began walking towards her.
You are joking, right? She just started using her kiow? Janine grimaced at the thought.
“The rage behind your movements is genuine, sister.” Lacerated Oilted her head.
“You are too much…” Janine chuckled.
“Are you surrendering, Janine?” Lacerated One asked icily, all warmth gone from her voice.
“I like it! This is amazing! For the first time in years, I feel like I don’t have to hold anything back!” Janine’s ughter rose to the sky, and the shaman froze.
“Oh, sister.” Lacerated Oouched her swollen lips. “I uand. If I had known of your fear and hunger earlier. Trust me, you never have to hold baything against us. We are tough girls.” A cheeky smile, unbeing of the high-ranking shaman, appeared on her lips. “But every match has a loser and a winner.”
“Right you are, sis,” Janine said, taking advantage of the time the defenders had to reposition themselves and form a semi-circle around them.
Her ribs were cracked but not broken. She could breathe fihe pain in her poor teats subsided to a manageable level. The skin around the gushing wounds twitched, but it wasn’t fatal damage. Psychological warfare. A trick from Terrific’s pybook. Yes, Lacerated One’s kick was hard, but it was delivered when Janine was at her weakest, uo block.
It went further than that. The ruptured teats were on the same side as the sshes. The shaman had sheared off skin and damaged the exoskeleton underh before immobilizing her and nding this excellent blow. Her sister carefully guided her through the fight, step by step, instilling fear and uainty through the use of different styles, shag her moves through the fear instilled by the spit and out of worry of missing another ssh from Onyxia’s style. Everything to distract Janine from notig the strategy. Even the exge of bites worked to Lacerated One’s advantage.
The damage piled up, but the same was true for the shaman, and Janine saw the star of victory clearer than before. She persevered; she had studied her oppo. There would be no more mood swings or uainty for Lacerated Oo capitalize on. Janine held her temper in an iron vise, embrag her inner beast to read accept her own pure state. There was ohi in store: the ultimate dirty move, saved to the st to secure the victory. It should shock Jao the core, but she was ready to face her past.
She blinked. It was time for her strategy.
