"Jack, baby, you have to get up."

"Five more minutes, mom," Jack murmured softly as he snuggled under his comfy covers while a cool breeze from the AC unit blew across his cheeks. he couldn't help smiling at the sound of his mother's voice, imagining her cooking up a heaping plate full of sausage, bacon, and Swedish pancakes with extra lingonberry sauce in celebration of his actually surviving finals and, of course, the first day of summer vacation.

He sighed happily, already knowing how the day would play out, the fun he and his friends would have finally putting their campaign of conquest into motion; he, Rich, Laura, and John working together as they always did to bring their alliance to heel, organize their tanks, strikers, and healers, before wiping the floor with the second tiers who had been hinting on the forums that they'd take over Velheim before the week was out.

Even with is eyes closed, snug in his bed, Jack chuckled at the thought, already knowing the source of their overconfidence, the identity of the double agent who would open the gates to their main fort and let their crack troops in at the worst possible moment for the Royal Griffons.

A plot that might allow for a flawless victory. Were it not for the fact that Jack himself was the double agent, their supposed ace in the hole. He was the one who had planted the rumors that Rich and Laura would lay siege to the Red Dragon's not-so-secret base the moment they took the bait and walked right into what would be the sweetest ambush in Elerium history.

"Jack, you have to get up, now!"

If he had any worries, it was the rumors that the infamous Hexxar, top PvPer on the killboards, was now an officer of the Red Dragons. Jack then frowned, slightly thrown off by his mother's strange shift in pitch and timber, sounding more like an elven enchantress than the mother who had put up with all his crap for so many years, for which he would forever be grateful, but never so much as when she had opened her house, and her heart, to the strikingly beautiful girl who had won Jack's heart.

No matter that her people had been genetically altered and bred as servants, just a generation before.

But wait... why was he thinking of his kindhearted perpetually exhausted mom working so many hours at the head office trying to incorporate genuine AI into Elerium as if she was an elven enchantress? He felt an odd twisting in his gut. But wasn't his mother just that? Both of those things? Which mother was talking to him? And Sarah... it was their anniversary today, wasn't it?"

His heart lurched. Sarah. Where was she? When had he last seen her? They were supposed to meet up later, but it felt like he hadn't seen her in ages. Had she gone missing?

"Jack! They're coming for you! Wake up!"

A cold jolt of fear pierced Jack's confusion, his heart pounding as he sensed death fast approaching.

He wrenched open eyes he only now realized had been closed, alarmed for just a single disoriented heartbeat as he looked about him, terrified that he was trapped, then not daring to move as it all came crashing back to him. The memories of living in two worlds, when his parent's secret project had turned out to be an AI interface imprinting the Elerium template, and perhaps others as well, into what could well be a fractal universe of infinite potential and unimaginable complexity.

Just hours or minutes away from their own reality finally giving way to the Big Rip.

Assuming that Big Rip had happened at all.

His odd train of thought came to a screeching halt when he fully snapped back into the moment, freezing himself to stillness in the hammock he had secured in the boughs of the tree by the forests edge he had thought an ideal place to safely rest while his horses quietly grazed below.

And now his heart was definitely hammering as he heard not a single huff or snort, yet the hot coppery scent of blood coated the back of his throat such that he wanted to vomit as the rustling foliage overhead dimmed the morning light.

Perception Check Made!

But the air was still.

There was no morning breeze.

Everything motionless, save for the mad pounding of his heart...

And death closing in.

"Ignis Sanguis!" Jack roared, blasting the tree crown with liquid flame as he frantically kicked free of his rope hammock as a beast of midnight shadow roared above before crashing down into what were now the ruins of his bedding, Jack setting it all ablaze with wild abandon as liquid flame seared into the snarling beast now crashing to the ground, a single dark claw skittering against the metal-like outer shell of the hardened Crimson Armor Jack had been too paranoid to sleep without wearing, which just might have saved his life, for all that he just barely hung on to the tree trunk, still a dozen feet above the ground, where not one but three massive slavering wolf-like monstrosities were snapping their teeth and howling like madmen eager for the kill.

Save for the one howling in the extremis of agony as Jack held tight to the hungry liquid flames searing the flesh off the bones of his foe, it only costing him a fraction of a point per second to maintain that sweet deadly spell.

But still...those points wouldn't last forever. The armor protecting him currently was reserving a good chunk, as was the blood bee his panicked mind only now registered as still being quietly on his shoulder, as if awaiting his command.

Which he immediately gave, before noting, to his horror, that the shadowy beasts were as much puma as wolf, unleashing their claws and now scaling the massive tree trunk. A tree trunk that Jack himself had only managed to grab a hold of thanks to a Finesse of 14 and a Quickness almost as high, gifts of potency, potential, and perhaps being reforged by all that he had once been before.

Gifts he was incredibly grateful for now, even as he tightly gripped the trunk with feet, thighs, and a single hand, while aiming his other at the maw of the closest wolf now just two perilous feet away.

Because if he had awoken on that tree branch with the straight tens he had originally possessed in all his physical stats, a perfectly normal kid, however many months ago it had actually been... he would already be dead.

"And soon you will be dead still, human!"

Jack forced himself to smile through the horror suddenly flooding him, sensing his foe's malice so clearly, so absolutely, as if it had been designed to stun him at the worst possible moment, showcasing just how deadly his foes really were. "I don't think so, asshole... Sagitta Acidum!"

Jack roared, grinning fiercely as a stream of acid globes the size of a softballs splashed into the now howling wolf's face, its maw liquifying and sloughing off as the shrieking creature stumbled back to the ground, racing in panicked circles.

And Jack was already expecting the furious desperate leap of the final shadow wolf, Jackhappily risking peril as he filled his would-be executioner's cruel mouth with crimson liquid flame filled with the fires of Jack's own outraged soul.

You have criticially hit Shadow Wolf! Esophagus has been destroyed! Lungs have been seared!

Shadow Wolf manages to clamp right forearm!

Blood Armor prevents limb removal!

You have suffered 1 Light Wound.

You are being pulled to the ground!

Jack cried out, gazing upon inconceivably feral hate as the beast locked down on his thankfully armored forearm, the vile creature now chewing into the gauntlet of blood-iron, clay, and magic, unable to do more than bruise flesh, and badly at that before it spasmed in sudden horrific death as flame like a plasma blowtorch cooked completely through its neck, as well as charring its innards and lungs.

But not before pulling a howling Jack down in it's death grip, and it was only thanks to his growing agility that he managed to land on top of the corpse with nothing worse than a broken wrist, than as a mangled body beside the beast determined to take Jack with it into death.

And for all that two more shadow wolves were howling in the moonlight, tormented by acid and flame, two more were not, glaring at Jack as he finally tore free his arm by dispelling his gauntlet alone, the pair exchanging oddly sentient nods, before charging as one.

"Scutum!" Jack screamed, stumbling back and summoning his blood shield just as a snarling monstrosity crashed into him, biting and tearing at the rim of his shield, claws seeking purchase on his iron crusted armor, doing all it could to overwhelm Jack as death loped forward for the kill.

Before screetching as Jack's blood bee finally made its move, Jack tucking into a ball and rolling during that momentary distraction, just as the last shadow wolf pounced for where he had been crumpled, an instant before.

And before the wolf could do more than snarl and glare at Jack, he was struck by not one but four rapidly divided globules of acid striking through the air, Jack having fired for the spot where he had been lying before even catching sight of his final nemesis, so that by the time the too fast wolf had struck and pivoted, its face was already covered with over half a gallon of liquid so destructive it could pit even stone.

You have critically struck Shadow Wolf! Shadow Wolf is fleeing!

Ice Shield is now Adept Rank 1! Perk retroactively chosen!

Jack flashed a fierce smile in the predawn gloom, as terror transformed to a hunter's furious exultation as he gazed down at the two wolves that hadn't fled.

Knowing that neither would rise again.

"Ignis Sanguis!" He roared, sparing a final pitying glance for his mounts that had been killed so ruthlessly, so violently, that Jack hadn't sensed a thing.

And were it not for Arcane Perception in the form of Magesight allowing him to sense the whereabouts of magic, including magical constructs and the undead, and Infravision allowing to spot an enemy's heat signature, now matter how well they blended in, he had absolutely no doubt that he would be just as dead as the horses that had fallen so damned quickly to those monsters.

He couldn't help glaring into the night, before flashing a smile just as feral as the wolves that had been hunting him, spotting the flashes of heat and a dash of Shadow magic marking his prey like lights in the darkness, before falling into a loping run.

Determined to make sure that not one of those wounded monsters would ever be able to hunt down another horse, or person, ever again.