The thunder wolf crashes forward, scrambling the barb and demons scrambling to get home before the sun rises fully.

Rune rode at the head of his brothers that day. His long, blonde hair flowing behind him as winter's breath attempted to hold him back from the task at hand. Ye are no frost, mein eyes are much colder than yours, winter daemon, he thought, mind thinking only of one thing: Revenge.

“Ye who took our mother must die,” he roared, sword glinting in the blood red sun. “ I couldn't think of a better day to spend mein birthday!”

His brothers roared in approval. Their horses barely kept up with Zetos.

“This Viking soul of mine, you best beware it Naga! Malchior! DRAGON KINGS!” he howled to the horizon.

Malchior, the younger brother, turned his great head towards the pack. He was the flame red dragon king.

His older brother, Naga, was the black dragon, who could turn fields to ice with a single wink. Naga was the true concern. The bringer of the ice, the father of the maelstrom...

Rune turned his head up to them, eyes fearless. “Zetos! To the sky!”

The wolf pierced the air with it's three simultaneous howls and flew into the air, it's eyes leaving a trail of lightening across the barren wasteland by the sea where the dragon kings nested.

“Arrogant mortals,” Malchior snarled, eyes lighting. His nostrils flares with a horrid, purple gas. The poison would melt a man's skin from his bones.

The others went for Naga's legs as Rune grasped his wrist and screamed to Valhalla, the veins in his arm turning to boiling lightening as Zetos streaked thunder across the sky.

The clouds burst with golden light as Rune sent his fist forward. A wicked smirk came; he adored the noise the lightening made. Like the chirping of birds.

Malchior threw his long neck to the side and swatted at him with a tail of ivory fangs. The great mouth in his tail opened, drooling with hunger.

“YE WISH TO DEVOUR ME SO BAD THAN HAVE MEIN BODY!”

Rune leaped off of Zetos as the huge, white wolf stormed through the clouds. The Viking gripped his forearm harder, gritting his teeth as the lightening grew so big one would swear a star was falling from the Heavens. His scream melted with the mouth's ravenous snarl as it swallowed him whole.

“Pitiful creatures...Do they not see their own deaths coming,” the dragon cackled, his scales all bristling in pleasure.

Naga stared at him silently, keeping the others at bay with only one giant talon. “You always have been the fool...”

From the dark, writhing confines of the beast's innards Rune threw his fist into the air and screamed once more. “NOW DIE!”

The twisting guts blackened, sizzled, leaving a horrid smell in the air as Rune listened to the dragon stomp about outside in protest. Blood fell down upon him, glittering in the sun as the beast split in two. He spit in its entrails, waving the poison that blistered from it's body from his face as he turned back to his brothers.

“Rune, ye quit your prancing about and help us?!” One of his brothers called.

The man turned his eyes to Naga and his brothers. They were still white with power, even as the lightening retreated into his veins once more and Zetos flew to his side like a shooting star.

Naga showed no emotion. He might as well have been stone. “Your mother was beautiful,” he murmured calmly, tail swaying back and forth slowly. The mist of the morning froze every time he swung it.

He came at the dragon king without fear, surprising even the king of beasts.

“BASTARD,” Rune screamed, not caring at the pain his body gave him when he summoned the burning white from both his hands.

The dragon swept his tail before him and froze the hot entities in place, simultaneously wrapping the ferocious man in his scaled grasp.

Rune met the cold eyes of the Dragon King. “Have a taste fer young men now, do ye?”

Naga managed a smile, all one hundred rows of teeth sparkling in the sun light as his wings shot into the air, ripping Earth asunder from the shock wave.

He heard his men cry out in surprise as the dragon rose in the air. It only needed to flap its wings once to be over the ocean.

The Viking swore under his breath as he saw the waves begin to violently crash against one another. “I suppose I should consider it an honor...you resorting to the maelstrom to get rid of me, eh?”

“Indeed,” Naga said, before letting him drop.

Rune smirked, even as the black heart of the sea opened beneath him. “ZETOS!” he howled in union with the wolf. As he flew beneath Rune, the viking grabbed on to his mane taking advantage to send a bolt at the Dragon King.

“Eyes of Odin,” he murmured, watching the bolt fly directly into the hinge of Naga's black and blue wings.

The dragon did not cry out. His eyes widened, but that was all the reaction he gave as his massive body plummeted towards his own sea behemoth.

The Viking slipped back on to Zetos' back, concentrating the last of his energy into one last bolt from Thor's hammer.

“Now...die,” he whispered, sending it into the maelstrom itself. The lightening came from the clouds itself and shattered the dragon and it's dark creation. The sea closed, and inevitably, slowly...calmed...as the man and his beast flew back towards land.

“Ye did it!” His three brothers cried at once, all tackling him in joy.

Rune nodded, faking a smile. It was a hollow victory, nothing would ever bring back their mother. He clasped his arms around his kin and rubbed his knuckles against their heads playfully, “Alright ye bastards, settle yourselves ...let's head home...”

The rest of them all trounced ahead, talking excitedly and pushing each other about. Rune stroked Zetos' head as he looked around what was left of their once beautiful woodlands.

It was only once the tragedy in his fight had settled in when he saw the intruder.

It wore a strange garb, a long, hooded cloak a pale olive color. As soon as he had made contact with it, the creature fled into the safety of the forests.

“Zetos!” Rune cried, leaping on his beast and taking off after the unwelcome one.

Whatever it was, its footsteps were swift. Not swift enough to outrun his thunder wolf however.

It backed itself against a tree, holding a dagger defensively as he hopped from the wolf and approached it. “Eh, what do you want in these parts, stranger?”

The thing slowly lowered the dagger, reaching one hand up to tug the hood down. His interest perked as he saw it was a woman. Her hair was tightly pulled back in a mass of ebony colored curls. There were strange markings around her eyes, which were lined in heavy black and pure white, as though she was blind.

“Free me,” the woman said, her accent deep and purring, “Or you will upset the Time Lock!”

“Time...Lock,” Rune repeated, summoning lightening into his veins even as he had to grit his teeth through the pain, “Don't give me orders, woman. You're too pretty to kill.”

She seemed to watch his hands carefully as the light from the element danced across her finer features. “How convenient...you came right to me...”

A short bow came before she said strongly, “I am Rusalki. I have come seeking you.”

A pause before he put his power away, staring at her suspiciously, “Why?”

Her eyes still seemed to scorch him. “You are part of the time arch.”