Despite the less than secure setting, Adam paid quite a lot of attention to his transformation. The first time he had gone through the process he’d not only been unaware of what was happening, he also hadn’t known that it could happen. That meant that his current activation was the first time he consciously activated Mama Bear.
He didn’t know if it was his Pain Resistance or the skill itself that kept the transformation from hurting, but he was incredibly thankful either way. He couldn’t imagine that his limbs and body stretching and growing the way they were was at all comfortable. Adam concentrated on watching his body change in the hope of completely ignoring what was happening to his face. Too focused on the size increases, he missed what happened to his clothes. One moment he had them, and the next he was covered in fur.
It only took a moment to realize that he had been worried about fighting in his bear form for almost nothing. There might not be a current of rage driving him to drown in blood, but he still possessed the instinctual movements of a bear. He could breath, rise to all fours, even stand on two legs. The problem was that he hadn’t lost his instinctual human reactions and thoughts, so he was having difficulty trying to pair the two. The struggle made him angry, so he threw his head back and roared.
Dropping back to all fours, he accidentally dodged one of the dire wolves that had lept for him while he stood tall. Oh, right. Fighting, Adam thought to himself. He would have been more embarrassed for his failure to keep track of what was going on, but there were so many new things that he could barely manage to parse anything at all. New things like another of the dire wolves slamming into his side. Not that he moved.
Bears outmassed even dire wolves, not to mention being as stable as a rock, so a shoulder tackle did nothing to his new form. The goblin leaping off the wolf to stab him with a stick didn’t do anything more than annoy him. The chuffing noise that came out of his maw would have been a little distracting, if he hadn’t immediately gotten focused on trying to shred the wolf with his soon to be standard attack of backhanding. His strike missed with his paw, but the claws carved furrows down the side of the wolf as it staggered sideways.
Adam had lost track of all of the enemies when he’d shifted, so he was blindsided by a pair of wolves darting in to bite down on his fore and rear legs. One even had a goblin that jumped up to join the other already on his back. With one of his forelegs still mid swing, he was in danger of falling. Multi Task finally kicked in again, and managed to combine some human ingenuity with bearish instincts.
A fierce growl escaped his muzzle when he kicked off with his unencumbered rear leg, rolling his huge mass straight into the attached wolves. The hard bone plates of his shoulders crashed into the backs of a pair of wolves, driving them into the ground. The cackling screams of the now flying goblins did nothing to drown out the crunch of breaking bones as the wolves were crushed beneath his weight. The bear’s instincts in his mind were the only thing keeping his breakfast down as he could feel the bones shifting, snapping, and punching through the skin of the wolves beneath him. He even took a few gashes himself, but his tough hide and thick fat kept any of them from being more than a mild nuisance. Even the wolves’ teeth had struggled to get through.
There was more struggling for Adam as he tried to get to his feet. Paws? Upright.
Just as he managed to get all of his paws on the ground again, yet another weight hit him. This time, with him already struggling to rise, he was knocked to his side again. The weight that had hit him turned out to be another wolf that then landed on his chest, immediately trying to tear through his fur. The bloody lines down its side identified it as the wolf he had tried to backhand earlier. A much smaller weight landed on one of his rear legs, but a reflexive kicking of the leg freed it. The pulling and tugging he had felt during that kick indicated there was a good chance that he had gored whatever it was.
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Once more Multi Task kicked in, with a little help from Mother Knows Best, leading him to wrap the wolf up in his paws and roll fully onto his back. Stabilizing himself with his rear legs, he began crushing the wolf with a bear hug. He threw his head back and roared as he exerted his strength, and saved his eyes in the process. The two goblins that had flown from his back earlier had returned with their sticks aimed at his eyes. The sharpened points glanced off his jaw, with one gashing into his gums, and the other stubbing into the ground.
With no free paws, Adam’s only recourse to the stabbing was to do something he really didn’t want to do. Ever since the fight began he’d been able to smell the goblins, but with his shift to bear form it had become so much worse. They smelled like they had bathed in liquid feces, and used deliquesced rot as soap. And with his jaws snapping closed around the third of the goblin he’d just bitten into pieces, he could confirm that they tasted much the same way.
His anger and disgust at the foul taste of goblin flesh let him put just enough more oomph in his crushing hug that the wolf was squeezed into paste, cutting off its incessant whining. Once more a fine pelt had been destroyed by bones stabbing through it from the inside. Adam spit out the goblin, and bathed his tongue in liquified wolf organs to cleanse it. He’d never wanted to eat a wolf before, but he really needed a palette cleanser and it was the only one available.
After enduring the shameful struggle to stand once more, Adam spotted the last of the goblins running away just before it was pinned to a tree with an arrow through its chest. Waving his head around he spotted the first wolf laying some distance away. Being the largest of the wolves hadn’t helped it at all when it was falling from the sky after he kicked it. Despite its best efforts the wolf couldn’t stand on its two obviously broken legs, one fore and one rear. He tried to say, “Idiot,” but it came out as another chuffing noise. Bear muzzles weren’t made for speaking.
In a rolling gait he automatically adopted through the instincts he had inherited in his bear form, Adam ambled over to the last of his opponents. There was no need to drag it out, so he rose up onto two legs, and then crashed down, claws first, onto the large wolf. His weight drove his claws deep into the body, crushing and breaking more bone. He still wasn’t happy about the feeling of bodies shattering under his strength, but he was sadly getting used to it. He watched the light fade from the wolves eyes as it died.
Apparently bears could sigh.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“That’s only the second fight he has ever been in, you say?” The duke asked Martin.
Nodding, he replied, “That’s what the boy said. Considering the awkwardness he showed, and the fear at the beginning, I’d say it was a true statement.”
“Hmm, yes,” the duke said absentmindedly. “Good instincts though. Lucky, too. And once it started, he didn’t freeze up anymore. That bear form of his is solid as well. Not as powerful as I had hoped, but strong all the same.”
“The boy mentioned something about that when he told me about the skill. Apparently, it comes with a defensively styled Berserk status, but only when he’s protecting children. As it was only for himself, he didn’t have the bonus in this fight.”
“Well now, that makes a huge difference.” There was silence as the duke thought over things. “Very well, he’ll do for now. It remains to be seen how well he will work out, but with time, training, and a will to work he should fit the bill nicely. My wife will be pleased.” He stroked his chin in further thought. “Martin?”
“Yes, milord?”
“You will handle his combat training for the rest of the trip, and while we are at home. See if you can find anything he can fight with in place of the weapons and armor he can’t use. I refuse to believe that the bear is the only way he can fight. As for the rest of his training, I believe we will leave finding a tutor to my lady wife. Better to let her make those decisions.”
“Of course, milord.” Silently, he added to himself, Wise choice. Keep the lady happy, less suffering that way. For all of us. She was an easy woman for most of the staff, but, as with any home, if the lady of the house was unhappy everyone was.
“Bring him back, and clean him up. Catch up when you can, we’re moving on. We’re done wasting time here.”