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Biting Chill ( 18 ) : The cold is strangely harsh, and even the still wind is vicious enough to sting. But the cold isn't the worst part of tonight--it's what comes with it. Out of a swirl of blowing snow, a massive, wispy wolf takes shape, enormous and snarling, with fur spiked like jagged icicles. Its eyes glow with a cold, wild intelligence, and before you can even react, it lunges as though you’ve trespassed deep into its territory. Every strike it makes feels like the bite of winter itself. Wherever its claws slash, wherever its jaws snap, frost cakes over. Even if you're lucky enough not to take massive damage, the cold seeps bone deep. When you manage to land a hit, the creature bleeds a strange, clear blood--icy water that freezes instantly into slush on the ground. The more damage it takes, the more its form flickers, shredded like wind-torn snow. The wolf fights with the relentless instinct of a dire beast, but it is not invulnerable. It will never run. It will fight until its body is broken and flickering, then--finally--a sudden gust will rip through the air and carry its dissolving body away. Howls echo on the wind. The rest of its pack probably isn't too far behind.

Note: This strange wolf is not a youma but can be used as a battle requirement for a character. It can only be used as a battle if there are two powered characters involved; you cannot write a solo and count this as a battle, and your character must be powered to meet battle requirements. You can use the prompt for as many characters as you like and it will count as a battle requirement, however if you repeat the prompt with the same character, only the first time will be usable as a battle.

This magic thing, this cube of whatever it was, Albrecht didn't exactly like it, but he couldn't help but be curious about what was written on that disc-looking thing inside of the cube. The only downside was that having it out came with all that other stuff, so he felt like it would be best not to mess with it in the archives unless he wanted to deal with people asking if he had picked up a hobby.

So it meant that he was outside, walking with another coat over the oddly technological-looking one that came with the cube and looking over the cube under one of the brighter streetlights. He had a pen and paper leaning on his thigh as he sat on a bench nearby some of the overly decorated trees that lined this stretch of green space between bus stops.

His brow furrowed as he looked over the thing, not knowing what the symbols meant as he copied them down to the best of his ability. He had Ekstrom's number, though the ring thing she'd mentioned hadn't popped up for him yet. There'd been a pull towards somewhere, but with the flood of new purchases coming into the archive that he had to sort and tag, he hadn't put much thought into this weirder sort of hobby that had been thrown at him out of nowhere.

With a sigh, he pulled out his phone to text her, asking if she was free to meet up. Though after sending it, he thought he saw something moving nearby and tucked both his notebook and phone away. He didn't feel anything, though he hadn't exactly paid much attention last time when that monster had been biting at him.

Staring off into the swirling snow, he couldn't help that feeling of being watched. It was a new occurance, coming with this whole magic thing, and he still wasn't sure if he liked it either.

Even with the frigid weather, he wasn't exactly surprised to see her beaming at him. While he couldn't exactly share that energy, it wasn't as annoying this time, considering he wasn't scrambling up a building to run from some shadow monster.

Waving back, he stood and paused as he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. With all the snow, he was half certain that it wasn't anything else, but that feeling still hadn't gone away, and he wasn't one who relaxed easily anyway.

"Evening, I had... some questions and you did mention I could ask you about Mercury, so." Holding the cube up, he pulled out one of his smaller magnifiers to look at the disc stuck inside it again. "I can't for the life of me figure out what this says... and I keep having this odd feeling like I need to go somewhere."

Just as he was about to offer the cube over to her, something jumped between them, crashing into him and biting down on the cube with its teeth. "What the?!"

It must have been going for his arm, because after another moment, the snowy-looking wolf shook its head and let the cube thump down to the ground.

While he wouldn’t like to admit it, for a moment he stood like a deer in the headlights until Ekstrom brought her shield down on it. Between the sound and the motion, he snapped to and snatched the cube up before throwing it at the thing, as if it might be even an ounce as effective as her shield was.

Stepping back, as the wolf seemed dazed and potentially more pissed that it hadn’t gotten a bite out of either of them, he shrugged because, really, this whole thing wasn’t okay. “Didn’t get me but…. Should we… probably go?” Taking another step back with each pause, he stared at the wolf with some curiosity but mostly tiredness of the fact that all the magic so far had been a pain in his a**.

With a howl and a shake of its head, the wolf tried to bite back at the one who had hit it, though it didn’t have the best shot at it with that metal shield in the way.

While Ekstrom hit the thing again, Hoheheim wasted no time scrambling and snatching his cube back up before bolting. If there was any silver lining to all this, he could at least run faster than he did when he wasn’t in this outfit. Powered up, that’s what they called it. It wasn’t like he enjoyed this side of things, but if he wanted to look into whatever things were happening, it unfortunately meant he needed to keep doing this or at least keep talking with the woman who was saving his a** again.

“Hurry, hurry, let’s get out of here!” Taking a moment to look back as he ran over the snowy ground, he could tell the thing was falling apart, but he didn’t want to stick around any longer to see it disappear or whatever it would do. “Why are there so many monsters?!” He was two for two on them when it came to going out at night and meeting up with Ekstrom. Not that he’d technically been trying to meet her when everything happened the first time.