She did not explain her whole plan - Aluca was the only one to maybe care about her undergoing the full scientific method, and he could probably piece together the bits on his own from what she had said earlier. Mila did, however, crack into roping the others in to helping her take measurements. She waited until they were down the road a ways, not wanting to quash Rora’s floaty feelings, though.

The others agreed easily enough and even helped brainstorm potential measures - high jumps, long jumps, sprints, number of times she could strike with her knives in a time duration, jumping jacks in a minute. Other ideas were fielded but were eventually dismissed for being difficult to do accurately or using materials they did not have access to.

It did give them a good way to spend the time trudging down the road, though. Spirits did not dampen even as they physically did once the skies opened up, spitting rain down upon them from on high. By the time the sun started to fall low, they had already picked out a flattish, marginally elevated area and had cleared it of rocks and sticks, setting up their tent and Naw-Naw getting to work kicking up a small fire for cooking.

The following morning, Mila hopped to it as soon as everyone was up and awake. She wanted two folks counting time for her on each item, and her gnoll and human friends seemed best suited to the task, and not-so-begrudgingly went along with her once she asked.

For the sprint, she and Aluca used one of their coils of rope to measure out a stretch of 100 feet across ground that was a little wet, but not bad. Flat and relatively open, with two small branches stuck into the earth as markers. It was no track proper, and there were no stopwatches, but it was going to have to do.

Mila took her place at the opposite end of the stretch, warming herself up a little bit before she get proper ready. She bounced in her boots a little, shaking out her hands, keeping herself loose and pretty relaxed. She was not nervous, there was nothing on the line here, but she was still excited to put a number to her running speed, and Mila showed it.

As she settled down, crouched over in that runner’s position that felt weirder, stronger, with her digitigrade legs, her tail lashed out behind her, ready for the hunt, and Mila was just as hungry for it. At Naw-Naw’s bark of “Go!”, she went, her whole body unwinding and zipping forward faster than a bullet, it felt. It was eternal moments before she slammed past the end goal, moving between Aluca and Naw-Naw before she started to try to slow down, with… mixed success. The mud underfoot had not interfered much with her taking off, but she slid enough for her stomach to jump into her throat as she tried to stop.

Once Mila had actually managed to not crash into anything, she turned back towards her assistants only to realize that Rora was clapping her applause from the side. With a smile, Mila took a deep, dramatic bow complete with the rolling wrist hand flourish before stepping over to take her notebook that Rora was holding under one arm, along with a piece of charcoal. “How fast!” Rora praised as she handed as she handed over the to-be-logbook.

Naw-Naw approached with a nod. “Ah’ll say. Three seconds, maybe smidge more?”

“Three point one,” came the more sure and scientific answer of Aluca’s. Him being able to measure to a tenth of a second half-raised an eyebrow from Mila as she jotted that down in her notebook. 100 feet in 3.1 seconds, roughly 32.3 feet a second? On a different page, she ran the math, multiplying by 60 twice and then dividing by 5280. At that, her eyebrows did go all the way up.

“About 22 miles per hour,” she said, not winded at all. That felt… really fucking fast, as a number. Not vehicle fast, obviously, but still fairly close to getting a speeding ticket in a school zone fast. On foot.

The other tests were impressive in their own way. The high jump deviated from Olympic standard by instead measuring how high up she could strike one of her machetes into a tree, and came in at ten feet, four inches. Hughestace got the honor of clambering the tree with the rope to get the distance.

The long jump saw Mila splattered in clay-mud for her claimed eleven feet, three inches. For jumping jacks, she clocked in at 103, a blur of pink for the minute that it lasted. And her strikes were… completely inconclusive. She had opted to use her machetes after weighing if she should use just her hands and they set up a hefty log for her to tear into, but actually getting to let loose in her storm of steel saw Mila lose the count a bit past 100, and that seemed to be some halfway through the minute that she was supposed to be measuring. By the time that Aluca and Naw-Naw both called time in sync, the log was more kindling than anything else and Mila was smiley with how good it felt, in spite of it not actually helping with the measurements.

That last part was not great, but Mila was still busy digesting the four she did manage to get something out of. Those numbers felt massive to her, even if she had nothing to compare to, both for herself or anyone else. She would be fixing the former in time, though.

Everyone still did their morning rituals, having no reason or excuse to slack off, but Mila was chomping at the bit for more. She was half tempted to ask Rora to spar, to get an actual fight in even if it was a mock fight, but they had no training weapons and using their actual, lethal tools was stupid as all hell. The middling case was someone got injured and Naw-Naw fixed them up just fine - which still wasted whatever they had to use to fix up whomever got hurt. So Mila refrained from asking, even if Rora was eyeing her in a way that probably meant she kind of wanted the same.

No, instead it was just their solo exercises, although both kobolds did spend their routines doing a bit more overt watching of the other. Rora used the poor log Mila had already beaten up and finished the job, forearms rippling as she slammed her heavy sword into and through the wood, drawing it back up and chopping it down. Where Mila moved like angry water, or maybe water filled to bursting with hungry piranhas, Rora’s movements were always slow, measured, and unstoppable, a mountain given an oversized knife and told to do what it must.

It would, on anyone else, be terrifying to some degree. The silvery translucence ebbed and flowed with each movement, all while the morning light set golden scales to glittering. Whatever moon thing had granted its favor to Rora, it certainly seemed to have an appreciation for how the ethereal aesthetic would work, because damn if it did not work.

The paragon of might in tiny form factor caught Mila’s staring though, and gave a warm smile and a wink as she rolled her shoulders. It was enough to get Mila blushing as she returned to focusing on her own exercises and stretches, turning away to remove temptation and unwittingly providing plenty for Rora herself to deal with. Fair was fair, and Mila’s easy toe-touches were very unfair.

Once everyone was ready to move out, move out they did. But yesterday’s conversation and this morning’s fun continued being the topic of the day. Mila’s experiment measuring had been a nice bit of excitement, and led to everyone considering what might be good, similar measures of their own abilities. Ways to gamify their growth, was how Mila read it, although the general spectacle was appealing too.

Sadly, Mila’s ideas that Naw-Naw be tested on making all the foods that Mila particularly liked was shot down, if only because of their current situation and the limited supply. The idea of them blindly measuring ingredients was brought up, although nobody would be able to verify beyond Naw-Naw themself, and was apparently much more feasible.

Rora’s strength was easy to measure, as was Hughestace’s visual acuity, even if the latter would require more setup. Lots of getting to hide things away from him though! Aluca had a wide field of ideas for himself, almost all of which were particularly dry but actually had him rather giddy, which was the most important part, probably.

The idea of having four more test subjects, kinda, was weirdly great news for Mila. She had not been planning on roping them in, but if they were going to do it anyway because it was *fun*, who was she to stand in the way of that?

Naturally, the world at large had to spit upon that by introducing the experimental condition before she could gather that data.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

They were moving along the side of the road, where the grass still lived, when Hughestace threw a hand up, paired with a sharp, “Stop.” Everyone froze as immediately as they could and slowly, most of the fingers on the upraised hand dropped, leaving only an index finger as Hughestace listened, tilting his head back and forth minutely.

All Mila could hear was the smallest bit of wind in the canopy above and the quiet sounds of water - the tiniest of streams nearby, and the faint, sporadic chorus of water droplets falling from the trees. None of those were cause to freeze the group. Unfortunately, that did not mean anything, just that whatever it was, was beyond her abilities to notice.

“We’re being hunted,” was Hughestace’s absolutely bone-chilling decree after a few beats had passed.

A chorus of “fuck”s, or their equivalent, softly echoed out. The glance that went around was as much conversation as was needed, really - they either turtled up in the middle of the road for a few hours and hoped whatever was tracking them got spooked enough to go hunt elsewhere, or they kept moving and got ready for an attack to happen… eventually. Both were exhausting prospects, but at least one of them kept the group moving and helped clean up the area.

“One moment first,” was Mila’s addition to the shared understanding. One hand went back to the case strapped to her pack, the other steadying her as she contorted around. Each of her friends moved to stand guard, watching the surroundings, in the off chance that whatever was out there decided to strike as Mila got a bit distracted.

Her blunt thumb claws undid both latches and the opening flopped open, spilling the coiled tail whip right into her hand. With it acquired, she shut the case and got to donning it, keeping an eye out herself as she quietly thanked nobody in particular that she had practiced feeing her tail in and fastening the straps without looking.

Once it was on, she dropped the rest of the coil as she rolled her tail, unfurling the metal behind her. “Now the bait is ready,” she confirmed, getting a strained chuckle. There was not much else to say after that, though.

Rora drew out her sword and thunked the flat of the blade against her chest, reaffirming the silver shimmer, before taking point. Aluca followed, looking particularly unprepared, and Naw-Naw and Hughestace followed him, a person and a half of width between their shoulders. They both had their weapons of choice in hand, a sturdy skillet and javelin respectively.

Mila trailed behind by quite a bit, as far from the two in front of her as they were from Rora. She was the bait, after all, the tail of the group and a straggler at that, small and clearly easy to pick off. The others were there to look sturdy and protective of Aluca, who actually was the most vulnerable, while Mila, well. She could get fucked up by a yotel without too much concern.

As a group, they now moved a tad slower, giving Hughestace and Naw-Naw a better chance of actually catching their watcher or watchers whenever they slipped up. But for however much slower they were going, they were also now incredibly on edge, waiting for the shoe to drop and unable to talk to blow off steam.

The first couple of minutes were tense, everyone wound up, sharp. After that fourth minute or so, though, the edge of adrenaline started to fade and muscles held ready to spring began to grow weary. Around the tenth minute, folks started to cramp up and were all adrenalined out, in spite of everyone knowing that it could be a while before things went down and trying to behave accordingly.

That made it the perfect time to strike, of course.

Hughestace reacted to the sound of running foot steps a split second before Mila heard them, planting his lead foot and pivoting around it to chuck his throwing spear over Mila as he shouted, “One!” By that point, the squelch of weight through mud had made its presence known to Mila’s brain and she also got to react, moving almost as blindly as Hughestace had.

Almost being key, because that thrown weapon and the assumption that she was the designated snack was enough.

Mila turned and threw herself to the side in one wrenching move, leaping laterally and picking up an insane amount of speed with her tail in the moment. Metal links tore through the air and left it screaming in their wake.

The mountain lion that had been sprinting up to plant its fangs in the back of her neck was massive, somewhere between 200 pounds and 2000 pounds. It also had the good manners to look peeved as its prey slipped to the side as it was starting up its actual pounce, but a shifting in its back paws and a stretched out foreleg meant it still had plenty of room to grab at Mila.

Mila’s rotational velocity, imparted along her lengthy tail and even lengthier tail chain, was far faster than one flying big cat, though. The blades swept over and up, meeting it on the side of its chest and the resultant snap slamming the rest of the weapon’s length across the critter’s side.

The metal tip hit broadside but the sound, half bullwhip and half butcher’s cleaver, was loud and clear. The cat reflexively flinched, drawing in its reaching paw, and the force of the blow meeting its target pulled at Mila. She pushed off the mud and into the motion, driven left and low by her own swing, and with it dove beneath whatever claws might be there to snag her face, doing her best to continue the turn and free her tail blade for the rest of the fight.

For all her luck in landing the first blow and keeping her spine snugly unsnapped, the giant-ass cougar that landed next to her, now hungry, hurt, and supremely pissed, felt like the other side to her fortune. Consequences to be dealt with.

Consequences that turned on a dime and shot a paw out at her, giving Mila her first look at those claws. She had clipped a house cat’s claws before when they were not compliant, and felt how easily they had drawn blood from her unscaled skin, but these hooks were fucking brutal. Brutal, and too slow to catch her, leaning back out of the swipe and flowing back in after it.

Her knives had found their way into her hands at some point in the last few seconds and she snapped both forward at the offending leg, one going wide and the other only scoring a shallow graze before she kicked back, away from the hissing fangs that would crush bone.

A half-lunge of its neck had the cougar trying to distract her from the other paw, raised up to slap down at her, but Mila was wise to that too. The hardest part was this game of footsies here, where Mila was at the edge of its range. She could press in through the strike zones and tear the beast up from where it would not be able to get her easily but pushing forward would leave her open to a nasty paw swipe. She could back up further, to better use her tail, but that would leave her open to getting pounced at, or worse.

Thankfully, the cause for concern over that ‘worse’ was also the tipping factor. Sure, she had to make sure big cat there had its eyes on her so it would not go after her friends, but as she and the cat both watched each other’s eyes and shoulders, pushing in and pulling back minutely looking for the other to slip up or commit, her friends took their shot.

Well, ok. Rora was guarding the front (rear?) in case there was a second big cat, and Naw-Naw was guarding the other side. Aluca was still getting ingredients out in case it was needed. *Hughestace* took his shot.

Hughestace could also hit the broad side of a barn, and this was more a barn cat than any kitten on any farm Mila had ever seen. As such, the javelin that he threw hit its flank and hit hard, twisting the yowling beast as it spat and hissed, trying to find the new aggressor that was still some thirty feet off.

It realized that quickly, but not quite fast enough. As it tried to turn itself back around, Mila had already thrown herself at the opening, counter-pouncing high and driving one of her blades in deep into the lower back of the beast. More noise, more screams that sounded a tad too human-like, but that just drove Mila faster.

With only a single enemy and clear control of her faculties, if one ignored the light red creeping into the edges of her vision, she could actually *work*, unlike with the yotels before. She jumped as well as she could and heaved with her arm, hauling herself up and crouched low on top of the mountain lion, grip like iron on the handle to keep it from bucking her off.

To cement her position, she whipped her tail over the other side, pushing it forward as she leaned back a bit and appreciated the sound of tortured air once more, followed by a much more solid hit as her tail and the bladed chain struck and kept going, swinging around the critter’s torso and wrapping back around in front of her, drawing blood as she shredded fur.

Mila only had a few moments before it properly reacted to how much of a threat she really was on its back, and in that tiny window, she chopped down once, thrice, five times with her free machete, not quite able to reach up to its neck and just settling for the pit of its foreleg, on the same side as Hughestace’s spear, which still stuck out and slowed the beast.

Mila could feel it now fully panicking and it yanked around to its left, trying to get at the thing chopping at its shoulder with its mouth just as Mila was pulling up and back. It even started to half-jump to try and lunge at her but she was already falling away, off the side she had boarded on, yanking her handhold knife out as she went.

The dismount was grisly, though - it was opposite of the side she had slammed her tail against the beast, so as she went, her tail was dragged along behind her. Her actual tail did not do too much, but the razor blades on the chain links pulped the flesh that they forcibly unwound over, leaving a slightly spiraled ring of ruined meat behind.

The mountain lion did not realize its mortal predicament yet, that it had suffered multiple wounds it could not heal from, but it decided to cut its losses, that it would retreat now instead of fifteen minutes earlier, when walking away had been an option.

Mila’s mind made a snap decision as it started to turn, and her tail shot out again. This time the spiked tip of the chain struck, and it landed with the crunch of bones as she took out the lion’s good back leg. A glance over showed Hughestace lowering his javelin slightly before giving her a minuscule nod.

Mila did not return it as she circled the now-crippled beast. She was in no position to clench her eyes shut or look away from the suffering she had caused, so all she could do was try to ignore its pained cries until, with one more swing, she silenced them.