Chapter 28 Growing Balls?

When my mind was slowly returning from the world of dreams, I felt something move next to me and instantly I was fully awake. I looked around and saw that Alicia had just stood up.

A sound of pain escaped her mouth while she rubbed her legs. "It was a bad idea to sleep on the floor," she said to herself, what I only partly understood, while she was moving to her closet.

When she started to undress I averted my eyes and tried not to peek at her. When she was finished she looked at me and said to me,"Pochi, do you want to go down with me and get something to eat?"

I didn't need to think about it as I was quite hungry. So, I stood up and walked towards her.

Just as we left Alicia's room the door to Sophie's room opened and a sleepy Sophie came out still wearing her nightgown.

When she saw me she called out my Name,"Pochi", and rushed over to me to hug me. Scared of the sudden turn of event I shifted to the astral plane and moved behind Alicia before returning.

Sophie looked at me with big moist eyes and asked,"Pochi?". I quickly activated my language comprehension before she continued with,"I know I was bad, but please forgive me, I don't want to be hated by you." while she said this tears started to roll down her cheeks.

I wondered what I should do, I don't hate her, but what she did was still pretty bad. If she was one of my daughters I would punish her, but right know I'm her pet. You know what  screw this I'm a pet, I'm me and I do what I want.' I activated my telepathy spell and connected to Sophie and Alicia and then I told both of them with the words I know, "Don't hate Sophie, Sophie bad, Sophie Scary, Sophie ..., not Sophie's player, Pochi no Sophie ... The moment". In the end, I didn't know enough words to bring my thoughts across fully.

What I intended to say was,' That I don't hate Sophie, but that she did something terribly and that I'm scared of her right now, that I'm not her plaything and that I need some time for myself right now.' I hope I brought it across well enough.

Sophie silently looked at me before she started to cry really hard. Alicia looked at me and then at Sophie, then once more at me. I wanted to comfort her, but I knew that if I would do that then nothing would change with her behavior so I disconnected my telepath from Sophie and said to Alicia, "Alicia, please Sophie. No Pochi."

Alicia went over to Sophie and started to comfort her while I sat down and waited for Sophie to calm down. It took only 5 minutes for her to calm down.

Sophie went back into her room and Alicia came over to me and talked to me,"So, you want to ... ahh, it is hard to talk to someone that doesn't understand you completely.". Before she said anything more I told her through telepathy, "Pochi skill understand human".

Alicia looked at me and asked,"you have the skill to understand the human language?". I answered with a short, "yes". "Then why do you have so many problems speaking to us?" she asked kind of interested. I pondered how to tell her then I remembered how she told me that my thoughts went to her in some kind of gibberish and told her, "Pochi skill change language, Pochi thinks language skill."

It took her a while to understand but shortly after she said, " Ahh your skill changes the language to the one you are thinking in. Is this what you meant to tell me?". I just nodded at this.

Alicia smiled at me then asked me," So was the meaning of what you told Sophie something like You are a bad girl, I don't hate you, but I don't want anything to do with you." I was a bit shocked at what Alicia told me and responded with, "No, Pochi like Sophie, Pochi alone Sophie" hoping that this time it would be interpreted right,

Alicia was thinking about what I said and then told me,"Do you mean, that you like Sophie but you want to be left alone by her?". "Yes, Yes No moment," I told her finding it hard with a limited amount of words to tell her what I meant.

Alicia looked at me and then said," now I'm confused did you just say Yes, Yes No Goodbye?". Now I realized that I accidentally used the word moment from English and not the legal language in the local language the word Goodbye is pronounced the same as moment in English.

I was wondering how to fix this when Alicia said something "No Goodbye could you mean that you want to be left alone for a bit by Sophie?". At this, I was glad that Alicia was thinking too and nodded to her answer. "I'm going to tell it to Sophie, she will be glad about this," she said as

Alicia went into Sophie's room and I was now alone in the hallway, 'I hope this will solve my problems with Sophie, next is Monica. Should I wait for Alicia? No, I can't hide behind her all the time I should go by myself'.

I took a deep breath cut the telepath to Alicia and went down through the floor while thinking," the telepathy spell is nice and all but that I need to cut the connection every time is incredibly  unfavorable, but there is no way for me to change this right now."

When I reached the bottom I realized how easy it was for me to shift to astral plane and back when I wasn't thinking about it to much.

Monica and Hank were at the table waiting for their kids to come down to eat breakfast when I shifted back out of the astral plane. Both of them looked at me. I took another deep breath and connected to them with telepathy and said,"Hello" and instantly disconnected.

Hank just smiled at me and Monica was surprised what confused me a bit. The first one of both of them to talk was Hank, "See dear If your calm, Pochi won't run away you probably scared the hell out of him you need to remember even though he is so big already he is still a young dog only 16 weeks old.". Monica took a deep breath and then said," Yes dear, you are right, but .." "No buts we talked about this yesterday." hank stopped his wife from saying anything more.

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I was confused as what did happen,' Ok they talked about something yesterday so they came to some sort of agreement, wait did he just say that I was 16 weeks old something isn't right.'

I almost instantly opened my Stat screen.

Stats NamePochiRaceSpirit DogAge16 weeks LifeStaminaMana 756/756196/196970/970 Strength5Force4 Dexterity6Control5 Agility8Intelligence8 Vitality8Will10 Look3Charm6 Perception7Luck4

I was surprised that I was really 16 weeks old but what surprised me, even more, was the growth of my stats. 'I remember the highest being 5 now my highest is 10 with others at 8. Wait if I remember correctly the max of those that are 8 is around 15 does that mean it is easier to raise one's stats to half? What about will I definitely didn't had a max will of 20 I will check this once I can see my max again.'

Hank and Monica were still talking about me, "then, at last, let me find out why he is so smart, come on Hank, If you do I will" said Monica and bent over to Hank. He blushed and asked, "with cream?".

'I don't want to know, what she is offering him, but I better intercept or else I will only ever be treated as a pet.' So I connected to Monica and Hank per telepath and coughed twice.

Then I send them,"Pochi here, Monica Question Pochi, Pochi tell Monica, Pochi try.". Afterward, I cut the connection once more.

Both of them looked at me before Monica said," See he really is way to smart for a dog even Balto needed 2 years before he understood human language and could start communicating his own thoughts, but Pochi not only does that he even uses telepathy to talk to us, in the human language no less."

"Yes you are right, but there probably is a pretty good explanation for this," Hank said.

'This is my chance' I thought to myself connected to both of them and said, "Pochi language trait."

both of them looked at me and then Monica asked, "language trait, Hank what traits did Pochi have?" Hank pondered for a bit before he said,"he had an unknown one, and I think the vendor said he had the loyal and protective traits.". "then how does Pochi know his traits?" asked Monica Hank, but I answered instead, "Pochi trait screen".  

Both of them looked at me once more before Hank asked,"Pochi can you show us your trait?".

This time I took a bit of time before I answered, "How?". "If you look at your trait and think about showing it to us then we can see it too."Hank calmly explained to me. "Hank do you really think this will explain anything?" Monica said while I opened the trait screen and thought about showing them all the traits.

Both of them were surprised, then silent and then after 5 minutes or so Alicia and Sophie came down the stairs, they looked at the silent room and then Alicia asked," Mom, Dad, what is going on?"

Hank was the first to respond to his daughter's question," Pochi is showing us his traits, his bonus traits are quite fascinating, I have never heard of a trait that uses mana." ."What, what I wanna see too" said Sophie as she jumped down the last two stairs. I let Sophie and Alicia see my traits too.

The first one to show more reaction to my traits was, of course, Sophie, "Wow Pochi your traits are awesome." as she said that she ran over to me and tried to hug me, but I evaded by shifting into the astral.

The next to react was Monika, "Now I understand why you are so smart Pochi, with a Larger Brain trait and this Language Comprehension trait you would definitely grow and learn faster than others, but I still have one question where did you learn this telepathy spell?"  

As I was still connected to Monica and Hank I included Alicia and Sophie before I answered," Lee book." hoping they would get it.

Monica jumped down from her chair and looked directly into my eyes, "Pochi does your trait let you understand written language too?" at this, I just nodded.

Monica jumped up and then went out of the room. Every one of us looked at the door she left out of before Hank asked, "does one of you know where she went to?".