Dmitri Briggsoff had been born before the turn of the century, so he was close to ten decades old now, the second oldest of Briggs and Sama’s children. Oddly enough, he had directly inherited his mother’s Talent, not his father’s, and though he had been born a Briggs, just like his dad, he had been Named Dmitri. Most people just called him the White Bear.

He was the only Seven Dragons Source on the planet, a chi-wielder of massive ability and power that only played off the genetics he’d inherited from his parents and his dad’s templated knowledge.

He was waiting out here because something was coming, he could feel it, and when it came, he was going to beat it down and feed it to the Land.

His father had once had this duty, albeit he was slower to respond because he had so many other demands on his time. With the rise of a powerful Source, a LOT of Old Things had for some reason decided that messing with mortals was again a fun thing, and Briggs had found himself putting his Hammer to the skulls of a bunch of nasty things who wanted to play around with the bodies and souls of the Slavic peoples, or had been doing so a long time and had now found someone willing and able to object vehemently to their conduct.

Dmitri had grown up on the tales of what his father was fighting, and knew that was what he wanted to do as well. He wasn’t the Natural Smith his brother, father, and some of his half-siblings were, and even if he’d inherited the Skills and knowledge, he didn’t have the drive or motivation they had to pound on metal and make it into something mightier.

No, he was a Natural Swordsman, a strange and borderline unnatural thing for an Ancient, who generally couldn’t use other than basic weapons at all. Dmitri had embraced it and promptly gone all the way with it, with his mother’s help.

His mother hadn’t Shattered her Null and embraced the Dragons, content to remain Forsaken and shut down all the nasty things that thought they could get away with shit around mortals. Likewise, his father had embraced his role of steering Russia away from the corruption threatening to eat away its heart, and of leading the whole world and human race to a higher place.

That had left him and his younger sister Snow Eagle to become the first Seven Dragons masters on the planet.

Not many people knew Snow Eagle was a Grandmaster of Seven Dragons. Most thought her just a Seven Ways Master, like their mother and their older sister Ravendark, and that new student of hers Red MJ, among others.

But he was the White Bear, stepping into his father’s role and taking up the load of protecting the people of Russia, and indeed much of Europe, from the things Old and new that were coming out of anywhere and everywhere to menace it. If they didn’t know what he looked like, because he fought in places few people went to or wanted to go to, they knew what he did, and so they knew his name, and where his power came from.

In the Murim, the world and society of martial arts, only his mother and father towered higher than the White Bear of the North, the man they called the Godslayer.

“Master Dmitri, there is someone coming,” the Ice Witch Ilya spoke up softly from the side.

One or two of Marzanna’s students were always attending upon him, a coy way of keeping tabs on him and tempting him at the same time, while giving the women exposure to some of the truly nasty things that threatened their homeland. The experience either frightened them into zealous support duties away from the fighting, or made them into steely true Ice Witches who could face down anything.

“Osko, she is coming on foot. Escort her in,” he said gruffly, and one of the two male students attending upon him, the dark and grim one, rose to his feet and raced away at inhuman speed, his steps leaving no tracks upon the snow.

“A woman, master? A prospective student?” Ice Witch Nanya asked from the side, looking after Osko... who not coincidentally had recently become her lover. Serving directly under the White Bear tended to do that to those who survived, saving one another’s lives and seeing one another fighting against things that threatened their people generating a deep trust that could blossom into more. Being able to connect on spiritual and magical levels to see if they could truly fit together only helped the process along.

“I would gather, although a bit of a strange one, Nanya,” he confirmed to the Witch. “I am guessing that her timing is not coincidental, from the other side.”

Both Witches and pale, tall Brigori, his other student, promptly rose to their feet, looking out over the empty rolling fields in front of them.

Dmitri the White Bear just waited for her to arrive.

------

She didn’t walk over the snows, advancing right through them as if they were no impediment at all, small flurries accompanying her as the snow was thrown up all around her. Her crimson attire stood out starkly against the white and brown of the landscape, and her raven-dark hair swirled in the cold wind, but the chill was nothing to her.

Asgardians routinely dealt with winters colder than mortals did, and the chill of space and the lands of the frost giants would scarcely affect them, let alone the lands of Siberia.

He wasn’t a rude or lofty man, and despite knowing why she came, he didn’t put on airs. He rose to his feet, startling her slightly as he turned to greet her, Osko coming to join Brigori at his right side, the two Ice Witches standing at his left.

White-haired ogres were always the most dangerous, but such were always at least twice the size of the White Bear, despite their resemblance. He knew what she was thinking when she paused upon seeing him for a moment.

“Lady Sif of the Aesir of Asgard,” he greeted her, bowing hand over fist. She seemed briefly startled by the fact he was an Ancient, but her quick etiquette lesson from Osko on the way here was taken seriously.

“Dmitri Briggsoff of the Seven Dragons,” she announced back, returning the gesture, and choosing to bow more deeply than he, as supplicant to master. “I thank thee for taking the time to greet me, Master White Bear.”

“I actually expect to be busy in a few minutes, Lady Sif. What brings one of the Aesir to these lands? I am not that caring of such boundaries, but I believe the pantheons still prefer to go through channels when going to other territories...” he said meaningfully.

“I come neither to challenge nor insult, Master White Bear,” the Lady Sif replied respectfully. “I was informed that I had need to improve my Way of the Sword by thy junior, and my, ah, level of physical ability made her an... inappropriate teacher.”

The White Bear inclined his head slightly. “Ah, yes, I believe you sparred with Red MJ during the Champion Contest. You spent some time on his Colosseum, in addition?” He rubbed his thick chin thoughtfully. “I note your companion Fandral is not here...”

Sif’s lips twisted in amusement. “He doth wish to see what a mortal could possibly teach a god devoted to the sword before coming here, I do believe, Master White Bear.” She glanced at his two students, one who bore an Axe, the other a heavy Spear.

He followed her eyes calmly with his own pale violet ones. “Osko and Brigori are here to learn of the Seven Dragons from me, not of swordplay. There are many teachers of the Way of the Sword below me, so few bother to come all this way to bother an old man, especially if they are Forsaken.”

The wind picked up abruptly, and a distant howl, Eld and hungry and chill, seemed to rise as it did, as if hailing from the edges of time.

“Ziminbelyi Volk!” muttered Brigori, hefting his Spear, the dark head of adamantine gleaming. The Ice Witches immediately began Casting, surrounding themselves with pale Seals in light blue, white, and crystal with sure speed.

“Lady Sif, your first lesson may perhaps be your last,” the White Bear said, hopping down from his rock as he turned away, and her hand tensed on her Sword. “Take my place upon this rock, sit down, and watch. You are a Goddess of Battle, and you should have no trouble discerning if I can be of help to you.

“If you believe after watching me that I can teach you something, I will be honored to do so. If you do not, I will not stand on my pride, and we may part in peace.”

Another howl rang out, radiating death and a cold heart that had lasted for eons. Her face stiffened. “It be not my way to sit out a battle, Master White Bear!” she declared forthrightly.

“Then it is good that this is not a battle, or you could construe it as an insult or something,” he replied with a casual wave of his large hand. “This is merely a teaching moment!”

Her lips twitched in amusement as the rapidly overcast sky and blowing snows that had thickened so much began to congeal, and yet opened a way for something to walk out from in between them.

It looked something like a great wolf, although it was thirty feet tall and its very long fur was drooping with steel-hard ice, layers of yellowish stains and black blood frozen upon it. Stag-like horns with gleaming points swept back over its wide head, a skull that seemed somewhat ursine, and the claws on its oversized paws were also long and black and gleaming, obviously weapons themselves. Spikes of ice rose up from the fur along its spine like a crest of some kind, and its empty eye sockets fixed on them, obviously still able to see.

It howled again, and the sound tore at their souls with a primeval fear that rose right up out of evolution and things that hunt in the night and snow. Magical Seals glowed with defiance, while the men simply braced and withstood it, just as Sif did with grit teeth.

“Sit. Observe,” Dmitri repeated, holding out his hand. The metal bar in it flowed and glowed, coppery metal extending out into a blade nearly six feet long, thicker and wider than a normal human would make such a weapon, but given he was over seven feet tall, that was hardly surprising. Sif was quite used to seeing her fellow Asgardians use larger and heavier weapons than mortals did.

The White Bear shot forward in a blur, just as the Winter Wolf howled a killing blizzard in their direction.

Sif’s Sword was in her hand whirling and cutting as she instinctively took shelter behind the heavy stone the White Bear had been sitting on. She was not surprised when several of the icy spears hurled forth by the Wolf of the White Death actually impaled the old boulder with their force and supernatural sharpness, cracking loudly as they did.

She had been told to observe, but that did not mean she would be safe! Sif found herself smiling despite herself. She realized it was a challenge, if only a moderate one, and hopped onto the boulder, sitting down to watch with her Sword out.

It was her first time seeing Masters of the Seven Dragons of this level of skill in battle. She had witnessed some lesser Dragon Warriors during the Champion Contest, but many of them used energy projection of some sort or another, and so were always shunted to the side tranches that were not as respected, replete with cyborgs and armor-users and other energy-wielders who were considered pay-to-win competitors, despite the fact that chi-usage was all from training.

It was unfair in some ways, but those were the Colosseum rules. Oddly enough, if you wanted to survive in the mortal world, those were the avenues of competition that were actually the most useful to experience, as she had discovered quickly.

She took the White Bear’s instructions carefully to heart, and while she did not ignore the powerful magic of Water and Air and Cold and Force wielded by the Ice Witches, nor the powerful blows singing with Thunder and Crystal, raging with the Storm, crashing with the Ocean, or burning with Flames, she kept the White Bear in sight at all times... and, she noted sharply, he made sure she could see him.

The first cut he used against the Winter Wolf had her sucking her breath in.

Five different Dragons were swirling on his Blade, but they were a distraction. It was the speed, the purity of the blow, the way it found an opening and cut through all resistance that was the important thing.

The Wolf yelped in pain as the attack tore through its frozen hide to the icy carcass beneath, whirling on the White Bear and biting, only to smash into the defense of his Sword and merely drive him back to the ground, where he batted away a swiping paw and instantly sent a line of glowing fire lashing back up that limb in return.

The Ice Witches were weighing the Wolf down with more ice, cutting into it with snowflakes of pure force energy, and blocking the icicle-spears shooting from its spine. The male students were also ripping into the wolf, hewing or thrusting through its icy hide, the same kind of profound skill and purity of motion about them that she had seen on Red MJ back then, if not as broad and pure.