Benjamin Vryce

Moving forward he entered the area acorns had raining down on. They carpeted the ground all around him, stretching away to the trunk of the massively huge tree. They were not all uniform in size, some being the size of normal acorns while others were near the size of his head.

Scanning the bed of fallen nuts, Benjamin’s eye caught on something strange. Not sure what it was he moved closer to look, careful to walk like the green woman had inadvertently taught him to maintain his cover.

As he neared the object, he squatted down and peered closely. It was an acorn, the approximate size of an apple. What made it stand out to him however was that its coloration was off. It looked to be made of copper with a heavy green patina mottling its metallic surface.

With a slight frown he picked up the acorn to examine it closely. The first thing he noticed upon touching the acorn was its warmth, it was slightly warmer than his skin. Glancing around, he spotted an acorn of similar size and picked it up for comparison.

It was cool to the touch, not warm like the aged copper acorn. He bounced them in his palms a few times, they seemed to weigh near enough the same. With his thumbs he gently pressed his claws into each nut. The regular acorn was hard but gave as he increased the pressure, the aged copper acorn didn’t so much as show a scratch.

Not sure what that meant, if anything, he looked around again trying to spot another metallic acorn. There was none to be seen from this vantage. It was a mystery, one that he couldn’t solve right now, but he was intrigued. Setting the ‘regular’ apple sized acorn on the ground he pocketed the aged copper acorn for later study.

That done, he watched his unwitting companions slowly search through the carpet of acorns. They seemed to be looking for something specific and not finding it. They also pocketed a handful of the riper looking nuts as they ventured closer and closer to the tree’s trunk.

The fighter was making more noise as he moved. Forgetting to be quite as he searched through the acorns. The ranger shushed him occasionally but even she wasn’t paying as close attention to the boar as before. It was snuffling along eating acorns by the mouthful, slowly making its way toward the pair.

Benjamin felt conflicted. He didn’t know these people and they were most likely enemies he would have to fight should they see him, but they were the only people he had seen in days. He thought about trying to warn them but was afraid of drawing the wounded boar’s attention.

He shuddered, looking at that beast. It looked so much like the animal that had killed him on earth and started all of this, only twenty times larger and angrier. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything but hide and observe.

He knew the moment it was going to happen. Like watching someone walking in front of a car, he knew would get hit but it was far too late to do anything. The pair of green figures wondered a little too close to the tree just as the boar was rounding a smaller grove of trees, they saw each other at the same time.

The dire boar let out an ear-piercing shriek and charged. The female was closer so it made straight for her. She froze in terror as the mountain of muscle bore down on her, unable to do anything but watch her end. Her male companion was quicker, letting out an inarticulate yell of his own he charged her.

Benjamin watched in horrified fascination as they each reached her at nearly the same time. The fighter reaching her just before the beast, he shoved her aside. The beast collided with his outstretched body with a sickening crunch. Sending it tumbling and rolling away to land in a mangled heap as it ran past.

The ranger had avoided the charge but had been nicked by the boar’s tusks as her companion shoved her aside. Stumbling to the ground she struggled franticly to regain her feet as the boar came back around to line up another charge.

Something broke inside Benjamin as he watched the mangled fighter flopping across the ground, like a marionette with its strings cut. He couldn’t help but put himself in the green man’s shoes, feeling again the animal’s tusks as they ravaged his belly. The helplessness of knowing that his life was over, that his own inaction had caused his death.

Not again. He couldn’t stand there and watch another person be killed because he wouldn’t fight this beast out of fear. His inaction had most likely already cost that man his life, he didn’t think he could survive that beast, but death wasn’t the end for him anymore.

He felt the burning from the seal on his core again but he didn’t pull on its power this time. He wouldn’t have done it even if his seal hadn’t been damaged. He wanted to face this foe with his own strength, to know that he had at least tried to face his fears.

Not that he articulated any of these thought at the time. At the time he saw the mangled body of the green man and the wounded woman trying to get up and flew into action. Before he realized what he was doing he launched himself into the air on a crash course with the boar.

He collided with the beast’s shoulder, right where the mega squirrel had bitten the beast. His claws were too short to puncture the animal’s thick hide but he didn’t have to worry about that, thanks to the squirrel’s fangs.

Benjamin sunk his claws deep into the thickly muscled shoulder. Shredding flesh and fat as he dug into the boar’s flank. The animal let out a squeal of pain and immediately tried to buck him off. Forgetting about the woman entirely, it focused on the small creature digging into its side.

He was having flashbacks to the crocodile turtle, riding a beast that dwarfed him in size and tearing away with his claws. The only deference was that with the reptile he had his hands at the beast’s throat here he was gouging at a shoulder.

Blood made his grip slippery and he scrambled franticly to keep his balance on the wildly bucking boar. His bare feet scrambled around madly finding little purchase on the course bristled hair before his toes snagged on a rent made by the squirrel’s claws.

The narrow gash was already starting to scab over, the claws not having penetrated as deeply as its fangs had. Benjamin’s feet hadn’t grown claws like his hands had, but they had widened and thickened considerably. So much so that walking for days on the forests uneven terrain hadn’t bothered him a bit.

Being despite for anything to keep him in place he dug his toes in for a better grip. Ripping the slowly scabbing flesh apart again and causing another bellow of pain from the animal. Having secured a better position Benjamin continued to rip and claw at the shoulder. Ignoring the gore that splattered his already blood caked overalls.

He had been focused solely on the creatures wounded side doing everything he could to cause as much damage as possible, so when the beast ran head first into the skyscraper of a tree he was caught off guard and sent flying away.

The boar bellowed, shaking itself like a wet dog. Not realizing for a second that its unwanted passenger was no longer on its back. Eyes rolling madly around its sockets it spotted the blood splattered Benjamin as he got to his feet. Without a pause it darted for him again.

Benjamin didn’t have time to react. The impact with the tree had rattled him, as much by surprise as pain. So, he didn’t realize that the boar was nearly on him until it was too late. Luckily, for him, the madly battling pair had forgotten that they were not alone.

An arrow flashed passed Benjamin and buried itself into the boar’s eye. The beast’s gait had already been unstable because of the massive shoulder wound, when the arrow imbedded itself in its eyes it lost its stride for a split second. It recovered quickly but it was enough to send it tumbling.

The distraction provided by the green ranger gave Benjamin just enough time to leap out of the way before the tumbling animal crashed down right where he had been. Not wasting a moment, he dove right back at the monster. Fangs bared and claws extended.

He landed on the boar’s less protected underside. Less protected relative to the rest of the beast. The hide here was still thick and unyielding, but Benjamin was relentless as he tore into his foe. It was like he abandoned his humanity entirely. He was only his fangs and claws, to stop was to be killed and he refused to die again at the tusks of a boar.

Another arrow slammed home into the boar. The shot wasn’t as well placed and the projectiles momentum was stalled instantly on the beast’s thick skull but the sting allowed Benjamin to get a few more good racks into its belly before it rolled to its feet and he had to jump away or risk being crushed.

The dire boar was hurt now. Blinded on one side and hobbled by its torn shoulder. Blood dripped from its ripped open belly. He hadn’t gotten through the muscles of the abdominal wall, or he would have repeated his tactics of ripping the guts from the beast.

He circled around the wounded monster, trying to stay in its blind spot. He didn’t think he had done enough damage for the beast to bleed out without more help so he had to get close. Unfortunately, it was wary now and turned erratically never giving him a chance to sneak up on it.

The combat had seen them moving all over around under the giant tree. The tree wasn’t in a clearing exactly, it just dwarfed all the other trees so much that the acorns had dropped in a wide spread. The thrashing boar had slowly worked its way back close to where they had started the confrontation.

Benjamin’s mind worked franticly unable to find a solution to this problem. He knew that he could probably escape if he ran for it now, but he didn’t want to do that anymore. He wasn’t injured beyond a few bruises from his fall but the power he could bring to bear just wasn’t enough.

As his mind worked, his eyes spotted movement, it was the fighter. Their combat had brought them almost on top of his body. Except he wasn’t dead as he had assumed. Benjamin was struck with just how small he looked beside the boar. The figure rose onto its knees as the boar neared his prone position, and with a swing that looked to take everything he had, buried the head of his axe into the opening Benjamin’s claws had made in the boar’s belly.

That attack split the beast’s abdomen, a three-foot gash that poured blood as well as the beast’s long ropey intestines. With that one blow the boar’s fate was sealed, there was simply no way for it to recover from such a wound. It didn’t come without a cost however.

As it felt the axe bite into its belly the beast went wild, thrashing around madly. The movements only served to spew its guts faster and thus hasten its end, but also brought it down on the fighter’s prone body. He was trampled repeatedly. Any life he might have clung to was snuffed out beneath those massive hooves.

Benjamin stood panting, watching the beast in its death throws as the life slowly bled from its remaining eye. The ranger had approached near the end. Standing some fifteen feet away she stared at Benjamin with wide round eyes. Up this close he realized just how small she really was, standing no more than four foot tall.

“Erlking?” she asked in a gentle voice, before collapsing to the ground. Only then did Benjamin notice the blood seeping from her torn leathers.