When Ambrosia left her puphood behind, exchanging a normal life for one lit by glowing sapphire lanterns and intoxicating power, there had been a dreamlike moment wherein she saw her future flare before her awareness like a painting splashed onto a blank canvas. Something had sung to her of her birthright - her new strength, her amazing abilities, her destiny to protect the Arcus Irae - and somewhere, buried along with the rest of the information deluge, she had glimpsed a flash of murderous red. The color of blood. Death. Passion. Convulsing in the throes of agony, all alone, Ambrosia was helpless within this overwhelming waterfall; she experienced a heartbeat of instinctual rage, spurred by that brief burst of carmine, and then everything else rushed forward to drown her mind. She knew, in the back of her mind, that her existence did not solely revolve around protecting any bizarre rainbow wolves she stumbled across. The young Tempest had already met several colorful varg… and felt nothing for them. Nor had she encountered her so-called Soulmate that the visions promised. But deep in the shadows… like a nightmare she wanted to suppress… lurked thoughts of her mortal enemies. Creatures she knew existed in Blossom Forest, but whom she’d been fortunate enough not to collide with.

The vampires.

Tempests had been born not only to act as knights for the delicate, pure-hearted Arcus Irae, but also to fight the demons of the night that fed from their own kind and spread their hideous curse like a festering virus. Ambrosia knew she’d have to face one of those monsters sooner or later. It was not a matter of if, but of when, and in moments of quiet where the girl had nobody to distract her the Tempest teen often fantasized of what it would be like to meet one of her nemeses. To be able to test her strength against true evil - to go all out, hold nothing back, unleashing everything inside her that made her different from mere mortals.

If Ambrosia had known it would be like this, however… she might not have looked forward to it so desperately.

She had been traveling back toward the ghost-town of Wudubearo, having grown fond of sleeping near the territory even when no one inhabited it. The coffee-and-licorice lass felt at home in the thick woods; her pelt nearly always smelled of moss and fresh dirt and all the green plants she brushed against. Perhaps it was the familiarity of her birth pack, or maybe just the insulated feeling of the forest itself, but Ambrosia had not quite been able to leave and pick a new place to live - a new pack to dedicate herself to. She was wondering if maybe Dierne Hrof was the right choice after all… when all of awareness erupted outward like a supernova. The huntress froze in place, pulse hammering, breath coming short and sharp from her lungs. She had just stepped through an invisible barrier - or perhaps a trap - and her Tempest instincts howled to life inside of her like the storm her kind had been named for. The urge to seek and destroy burned like a fire from within her breast. Her blood transformed into rushing lava in her veins. A ferocious snarl overtook her features, her blue eyes shimmering brighter. VAMPIRE!

Ambrosia launched into a dead sprint, allowing her heightened Tempest senses to guide her toward the one she must fight. The one she must kill. Muscles quivered as if zapped with electricity, her entire body frantic to start its battle. She could see in her mind’s eye the auras of living things hiding in the night all around her; the young lady focused at once upon a pair of souls that shivered with terror as they were confronted by -

“Blood-sucking heartless bastard!”

By the time the Tempest arrived, it was already too late. She had crossed the threshold that triggered her fury right as the vampire had finished off the little fae, and shredded into the clearing while the young bodies cooled there on the ground. The vampire - who had been growling at another female, probably wanting to eat her as well - whirled around in shock, his features a mix of anger and disgust and… fear? Loathing? Fires of scarlet and stars of cerulean speared into each other. It was as if their rage were vibrating at the same frequency, crescendoing louder and more violent as they faced off -

The golden-furred beast bellowed at the lone wolfess to run, and Ambrosia had a split second to wonder why he’d ask his prey to escape -

And then vampire and Tempest were slamming into one another, two halves of a magical coin molding and repelling and tearing and grabbing, clutching, biting - blood spraying from sliced wounds within seconds of their drag-out hatred and spattering on tree trunks and leaves - claws raked at the terra - fur dusted over dried pine needles under their scraping, dashing paws - the hideous sounds of teeth clacking shut hard and talons ripping past pelts and the thump of muscle hitting muscle and bones cracking and tendons stretching to their breaking point -

The vampire was older, larger, merciless -

But Ambrosia was young and quick and ruthless, mad with the drive to murder her enemy - this perfect stranger - and with so much norepinephrine singing in her bloodstream she hardly felt the wounds being stitched into her flesh. Whenever the vampire’s fangs scored her, she returned to bite him back with just as much savage enthusiasm, throwing self-preservation to the wind as she released control on her mind and just allowed herself to exist as a cosmic tool created to rid this world of fetid malevolence. Her strength was a mountain shattering the earth to be born. Within an hour, victory had already been decided.

The Tempest managed to grab hold of the vampire’s mandible. Using the full force of her neck - her shoulders - her core - she wrenched his lower jaw clean from his face. The joints gave a sickening pop as she ripped them from their root. The leech’s tongue came away with all the other glossal muscles, leaving a comically vulnerable triangle of wet red flesh pulsating below his maxilla. Spitting out the mouthful of bone and tissue, Ambrosia dove back in for the killing blow. To his credit, the vampire fought her until the very end… his limbs beat at her head, her chest, the assault growing sluggish and weak while the blue-eyed girl choked him out with her own grinding daggers. She was not aware of the blood painted slickly over her hide from the vampire’s grievous wounds, nor that which was rivering from her own injuries. Ambrosia knew only the taste of her opponent’s pulse as it faded between her clenched knives… and the almost dizzying high of victory washing over her when at last the carcass dropped to her paws.

At last, panting and mattered with gore, Ambrosia turned to see if the other girl had stuck around during the violent brawl. The dark damsel was breathing so hard she could hardly form words. “You… were talking to him?” In the fog of her fury, the Tempest had barely been aware of what was happening between the vampire and this unknown brutale. Had they… been speaking? Did this chick know the vamp? “How about a ‘thank you’ for saving your life?”