Chapter Text
"Ah, fuckin' hells…"
Pete swore as two tygres jumped from the ledge above him; the band was cornered, now, a half-dozen of the molten felines having surprised them at the narrowest part of the mountain pass.
The four found themselves back-to-back, surrounded as the tygres paced and circled, narrowing in. The dancing flames along their fur made for a hypnotic effect that left afterimages on Pete's vision.
"Come get it!" came Keith's spirited voice to Pete's right, and the die was cast.
Pete drew his longsword as he let his magic pool in his hands; as a storm sorcerer, he had several elements at his command, but ice was the obvious choice against tygres.
Cold white frost began to creep up the blade as he rushed at the closest tygre. It leaped at him to catch him with claws out, but Pete's movement had been a feint, and he smoothly ducked to the right, the breeze gently caressing him as he sliced along the tygre's shoulder.
It yowled in pain even as Pete turned around, preparing a blast of frost with his left hand as he spun to launch it at one of the other tygres. The blast rang like bottled thunder as the air froze between his hand at the tygre he'd extended it towards, causing the flaming beast to flinch and caterwaul.
He put his left hand back around his sword in time for the white coating to completely cover the blade, and he swung it in a wide arc at the first tygre; between the accumulated ice magic and sharp steel, it cut a clean, fatal gash along the side of the tygre, spraying molten blood onto Pete.
The blood stung like a bitch, but he didn't have time to scrape it off, as he was suddenly tackled from behind, the wind knocked from his lungs as a heavy weight forced him to the ground. Fear replaced the air in his lungs, and as he struggled to flip onto his back, he instinctively drew deeper on his magic, letting the power begin to fill his whole body. The breeze that had been simply touching him now held him in a reciprocal grip; with a thought and a push of his arm, he spun not only onto his back but with enough momentum to roll away from the tygre's follow-up attempt to maul him. He leapt to his feet, and let the power surge forwards.
He was the shock of a summer rainstorm, grabbing the tygre by the neck, his scaled hands entirely immune to its flames as he sunk his claws through its skin. The wind howled, and he tore out the tygre's throat as surely as it would have his if he'd been just a bit slower.
The tygre slumped to the rocky ground, unable to voice its dying pains, while Pete stood staring at it, hoarse inhalations slowly diluting the panic in his chest.
He mindlessly felt at his chest to gauge the damage the boiling blood had done to his clothes, but the fabric felt different under his fingers, and the sight of his hand reminded him that it wasn't the fabric that had changed, but his own skin.
His hand wasn't injured, but neither was it human. Shining silver scales coated the back of his hand and along his fingers, each of which narrowed to a slightly curved claw at the tip, but were otherwise the same length. Flipping his hand over, the silver faded to an unreflective royal blue on the palm. The scales faded and grew smaller at the wrist, giving way to skin.
Now that he'd noticed it, he could also feel scales replacing skin under his clothes, in the places where the tygre blood had burned through his clothes. The sizzling substance could cook flesh on impact, but his skin had transformed on instinct to protect himself.
With a wave of sudden panic, Pete looked around for his bandmates. To his relief, they'd seemingly baited most of the tygres back down the pass towards open ground, where the three of them had finished them and remained standing. John caught his eye and nodded, and the group started moving back up towards the top of the pass.
Pete sighed deeply, then picked up his sword and re-sheathed it. Then, he looked at his hands in distaste, trying to will them back to normal.
"C'mon," he muttered under his breath; he could feel the scales on his chest receding, but those weren't the one he was worried about.
Pete crossed his arms, awkwardly trying to hide his hands as his bandmates caught up; John approached him first, a knowing look in his eyes.
"You alright, Townshend?" John asked. His monotone voice affected disinterest, but Pete could tell he was playing it up.
"I'm alright. Worry about yourselves," Pete answered, awkwardly shifting his arms. He glanced over at Roger and Keith; the latter was fidgeting with one of his knives, while the former was looking at the second tygre that Pete had felled.
"Christ, that's a mess," Roger commented, toeing its head with his boot. "How'd you do that with a sword?"
"I didn't," Pete answered flatly. "Ice is sharp."
Roger frowned in disgust, which Pete thought was pretty hypocritical; between the elf's flail, Keith's knives, and John's blood magic, none of them produced particularly clean kills.
Then, Roger shook his head, his straight blond hair somehow staying perfectly flat as he did so, and looked back at the band. "Right, let's keep moving then."
"Wait, I gotta piss," Keith spoke up. Roger rolled his eyes.
"Make it quick, then. If you want to sleep in a bed some time this week, anyway," Roger said.
John looked back at Pete; Pete looked down at his hands, which now appeared perfectly normal. He uncrossed his arms, clenched and unclenched his fists, then ambled off to look out over the path that lay ahead.
Looking past the edge of the pass across the mountain landscape, he felt the wind pick up a little, playfully brushing past his short hair. He frowned, shivering once. It was a rude dismissal, but he didn't think twice about giving it. He'd have to be more careful with his magic.