London Undercurrent: Psychic Walker

The chime of Elder Iona's command faded into the grove's stillness, leaving only the tortured shrieks of the corrupted spirit at its center. The roiling mass of polluted green-black mist pulsed violently, expanding as if provoked. Murky darkness and lurid crimson streaks churned within it, emitting even more piercing, venomous cries. A stench of sulfur, decay, and burning leaves assaulted Alan's senses. Its chaotic Anima lashed at his mind like barbed whips, darkening his vision and churning his stomach.

"Alan! Focus!" Iona's aged, steady voice cut through the din, an anchor. "Remember Sean's teachings! Harmonize! Do not oppose! Feel the pain beneath its chaos! Guide, do not destroy!"

Alan bit his tongue sharply, the pain bringing a sliver of clarity. He forced himself past the nausea and noise, locking his gaze onto the writhing spirit. His grandfather's lessons, Lena's hopes, his own desperate need for answers fused into a pillar of will. He drew a deep breath, trying to plunge his awareness into the dry well within, to summon the ghost of his Harmonizing power.

Only emptiness answered. Like digging for water in a desert, yielding only sand.

"Gah!" The corrupted spirit seemed to sense his focus. A viscous stream of energy, like toxic sludge, shot from its mass with a shriek, aimed like a venomous serpent at Alan!

Instinct screamed to dodge, but Iona's voice commanded: "Do not flee! Touch it! Touch its chaos with your Harmonizing! As Sean soothed the wraith!"

At the last possible heartbeat, Alan planted his feet! He stopped trying to wrench power from within. Instead, he focused his entire being, his desperate will, into a single point—not to oppose the oncoming filth, but to... open! With near-suicidal abandon, he extended his awareness, actively reaching to "touch" the chaotic, violent, destructive energy stream!

The moment the edge of his consciousness brushed the polluted tide—

BOOM!

An explosion detonated in Alan's mind!

A torrent of fragmented, distorted, intensely negative emotions flooded him—a chemical river poisoning a clear stream, the scream of ancient trees beneath bulldozers, the earth's skin torn by greedy drills, the taste of despair from blighted land... Pain, rage, hatred, a mad desire for annihilation—branded onto his soul like white-hot irons!

"AAAGH—!" Alan howled, staggering, thin trails of blood leaking from his nose and ears. His vision swam crimson with violent phantoms. The foul energy didn't just assault his mind; it clawed at the point of contact, seeking entry into his parched well, aiming to corrupt, to consume him!

Backlash! Devastating backlash!

The watch against his chest blazed hot, the Thorn-and-Oak glyph flaring emerald bright, trying to repel the invasion, but it was feeble. Alan felt his consciousness, a ship in a maelstrom, moments from shattering under the onslaught of agony and madness.

"Steady your core, Alan!" Iona's voice held a thread of urgency. "It suffers! It pleads! Strip away the foreign taint! Find its true 'voice'! Guide it home!"

Home? Its true voice?

Amidst the drowning tide of pain, Alan grasped the lifeline. He stopped trying to "block" the flood. Instead, he forced himself to listen within the chaotic mire! To discern!

Pain... Rage... Hatred... Destruction...

No! Deeper!

Beneath the sludge-like negativity... something... faint, almost drowned out... a whimper? A primal yearning for purity and harmony? Like a clear spring choked by mud, struggling to bubble.

There! The spirit's uncorrupted core! Poisoned, twisted, tormented by the city's foul effluents, but its essential life-spark still flickered! It shrieked in agony, flailed in despair!

"I... hear you!" Alan screamed within his soul, the cry lost in the storm. He marshaled his shattered will, no longer to dispel or fight the tide, but to weave all his Harmonizing intent—that guttering candle-flame of power—into a single, tenuous, invisible thread. With agonizing care, he sent it questing deep into the chaotic morass, towards that faint, whimpering spark!

The peril was immense! Like threading a needle with spider silk in the heart of a hurricane! Alan's mind buckled under the pressure. Each brush against the core provoked a fiercer backlash from the surrounding corruption. He felt like iron plunged into acid, dissolving! Crimson filled his sight; the mad shrieks threatened to burst his eardrums!

But he held the connection! Just.

"Don't be afraid..." Alan poured every ounce of gentleness and strength down that fragile thread, towards the polluted core. "I know it hurts... you're scared... the filth... not your fault... give it... to me... let me take it... send it away... back to the forest... back to the Life-Stream... home..."

His Harmonizing will flowed down the thread, a gossamer touch, gently enfolding the faint, pure spark at the spirit's heart, brushing away clinging grime. Then, he stopped resisting the surrounding corruption. Instead... he guided it! Using his Harmonizing thread as a conduit, he began to painstakingly, agonizingly slowly... peel the parasitic pollution away from the spirit's core!

The process was excruciating, like excising gangrenous flesh from a living body! The spirit shrieked in renewed agony! Alan bore the brunt! The stripped corruption, finding a new channel, surged up the Harmonizing thread into him! Pain! Corrosion! Ice! Fire! Chaotic negativity hammered his mental defenses!

"URRRGH—!" Alan convulsed. Sickly green-black veins crawled beneath his skin. The whites of his eyes were veined crimson and clouded with darkness. He felt he would burst! The "well" within groaned under the weight of invading filth!

Just as Alan teetered on the brink of annihilation—

HUM—!

A vast, gentle, infinitely vital power surged in! The forest! Iona! The pure spirits! They sensed Alan's effort, the core's faint cry for help!

This pure natural Anima didn't attack the corruption. It flowed around Alan, reinforcing his fragile thread, and forming a resilient buffer within him! The invading filth slammed against this barrier—agonizing still, but unable to easily breach his core!

Bolstered, Alan rallied! He gritted his teeth, blood staining his lips, eyes blazing with fierce resolve! He redirected the stripped corruption. Instead of letting it flood him, he used the reinforced Harmonizing thread to channel it down! Into the earth beneath his feet! Towards the glowing mosses! Into the flowing Life-Stream in the air!

"Return... to earth! Return... to forest!" Alan rasped, each word torn from his soul.

Miraculously, the viscous, toxic sludge of corruption, meeting the vibrant forest earth and pure Anima, reacted violently! Murky darkness boiled away into harmless vapor; lurid crimson spots flaked off like rust and vanished; the thick green-black sludge was absorbed, broken down by the soil into nutrients for new life!

As the pollution was stripped and purified, the spirit transformed. Its shrieks lessened; its thrashing calmed. The murky green faded, revealing a pure, sprout-tender emerald glow. Its form stabilized into a hazy, serene outline of gentle green light. The stench and malice vanished, replaced by exhaustion and... profound gratitude.

It drifted around Alan, a gentle breeze, chiming like falling water and growing leaves, then rose gracefully, dissolving into the vast canopy of Anima-rich branches overhead.

Alan collapsed to one knee, gasping, sweat and blood soaking his clothes. He felt hollowed out, mentally shattered. But deep within, the parched "well," scoured by both filth and forest, felt... changed. Wider? Stronger? Holding a faint, nascent warmth.

Iona watched the spirit safely return, a flicker of relief in her eyes before turning to Fenrir, who stood vibrating with suppressed energy.

"Hunter of the moon, your turn," her voice was calm. "The forest heard the Harmonizer's call. Now, let it hear yours. Prove your reverence."

The pure spirits nearby, still unsettled, flickered uncertainly. The vast Anima pulse of the forest watched, waiting.

Fenrir drew a deep breath, amber eyes ablaze—frustration at being sidelined, challenge accepted, and deep, deep within, the lupine instinct of awe before ancient natural power. A battle-howl here would be disastrous.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the wary spirits, Iona, everything. He sank his awareness into the deep earth beneath his boots, into the slow breath of the ancient trees, into the subtlest whispers of leaf and wind carried on the air. He recalled the old ways—moonlit runs through primordial woods, the near-forgotten prayers taught by elders to commune with the wild.

The growl in his throat ceased. Instead, a deep, resonant inhalation began. It stretched impossibly long, as if drawing the very essence of the forest into his lungs.

Then, he lifted his head towards the fragmented night sky visible through the ancient canopy, and opened his jaws.

No roar of challenge.

No howl of bloodlust.

From Fenrir's throat poured forth a deep, resonant, piercing yet strangely melodic wolf-howl!

This howl was unlike any Alan had heard. It was ancient, mournful, echoing across vast time. Its pitch wasn't static; it ebbed and flowed like nature's own breath—now deep as subterranean echoes, now high as mountain winds, now rippling like water over stones.

It wasn't defiance against the forest's might. It sought... resonance! Fenrir wove his own wild, lupine life-Anima into the ancient cadence, casting it like a stone into the vast lake of the forest's Anima field, seeking to touch the deepest, eternal pulse!

"Awooo—ooo—ohh—ooo…"

The howl resonated through the grove. At first, the spirits flickered faster. The wind seemed to hold its breath, wary. Iona and the witches watched.

Fenrir didn't stop. He surrendered to the rhythm, the howl flowing uninterrupted, an incantation of a forgotten natural prayer. His body swayed subtly with the sound, muscles no longer tense but moving in uncanny harmony with the wood.

Slowly, wondrously, the grove responded.

The flickering spirits began to pulse in time with Fenrir's howl, breathing light. The stag-spirit of shimmering points stepped forward, chiming like silver bells in counterpoint.

The forest's omnipresent pulse, the Thoom... Thoom..., seemed to quicken, its rhythm clarifying, harmonizing inexplicably with the wolf-song! As if the forest's own heartbeat answered the call!

At the clearing's edge, mosses withered by the corrupted spirit began to glow anew, their light soft and steady. Fern fronds bruised in the earlier struggle unfurled slightly, wounds emitting faint green light.

Fenrir's howl tapered into a long, peaceful sigh, like a final breeze settling. He lowered his head, opening his eyes. The berserker fury was gone from his amber gaze, replaced by profound reverence and awe.

Silence reigned. Only the forest's pulse and the spirits' soft chimes remained.

Elder Iona regarded Fenrir deeply, her weathered face slowly breaking into a faint, genuine smile of approval. The amber atop her staff glowed softly.

"The ancient pact... has not wholly forgotten the blood beneath the moon," her voice was the wind through leaves. "Your voice, wolf-child, the forest hears. Reverence... is proven."