Rosha’s arms drop to her sides as she breathes hard from her outburst. “I just couldn’t let him know!”
Courtney stands there for a moment, arms still out. Then with a sigh, she steps forward and wraps her arms around Rosha. “I just want to protect you and not knowing where you were? It wrecked me. Especially after learning who you ended up spending time with. It was like my worst nightmares coming true!”
Rosha just stands there before admitting that, “I couldn’t tell you no matter how much I wanted to. It is literally your job to inform my parents about stuff like that.”
Courtney squeezes her tighter and shakes her head, “It won’t be much longer, I swear it. Because we are both adults now my contract will come up for negotiation. You father plans to wait till the beginning of next year like he does with all his contracts. However my contract is with both him and your mother and they have equal rights to negotiate it.”
Courtney takes a step back and grabs Rosha’s hands, “The second I can I will be talking to your mother. There shouldn’t be such intrusive things in it anyway! Especially now that you are an adult. Just wait a little longer and I will escape from under your father’s thumb.”
Rosha stays silent and just leans up against Courtney. The two of them stand there as time passes without notice. Without notice for them, that is. Jason, Lily, and now Peter are all loitering a distance away from the two, purposefully not looking at the two.
Eventually as all things must their moment ends and Courtney picks up the silence shell. Peter walks over and nods to them before mentioning, “So I scouted ahead. A bit obvious, I guess, but along the way I set it up to be interesting. Since we aren’t on a time crunch or anything I organized the swarms through a bit of baiting. Things will start at about where we were yesterday and go up from there.”
Then Peter turns to Jason, “I also set up encounters for your rabbit along the way. While she helps in your fights, it isn’t needed at the lower end so I figured you would prefer her working on her stats. Even with how easy it is for her to fight a swarm on her own, the solo fight is great for experience. Fighting not only a swarm but also a natural enemy will do that.”
No one in the group had anything else to do, so they set off right away. Not that they go far as right over the next rise is the first set of swarms. To the left is a gathering of two swarms, and on the left a single swarm. Peter points to the left, “That group is for you guys. I want to see how quick you can take it on compared to the rabbit. Mostly because that full body empowerment is viciously effective at destroying the swarm cats. Since neither group is an actual threat to you all unless an accident happens consider this a race. So on your mark. Get set. Go!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The group stands there looking at him. Peter motions his hands at them, “Go on, the swarms aren’t going to kill themselves. The clock’s ticking.”
Jason rolls his eyes and lets Lily down. “Go on, those swarm cats over there are for you to take care of.”
Lily does a small loop of hops around Jason and then bounds off towards her swarm. Jason watches for a second before turning to the rest of the group. “So I think we better hurry or she might end up getting bored waiting for us to finish.”
That gets them moving and the three of them charge off towards the two swarms milling about. They slam into the small gap between the two with a splash. Jason leading the charge has clad his feet in Never Ending Threads and each step sends Energy threads outward pushing the swarms apart.
Behind him Rosha follows with her staff swinging. What was a small gap is pressed back even farther as she forces the two swarms to fully separate. Then, just after her, Courtney comes in. She had been standing back and just providing ranged support but had decided to get into the thick of things.
Now in melee for the first time since Jason met her, she shows off one of the activistic traits that makes her species, pantherkin, stand out. Most kin will be fairly humanoid in form, keeping to things like plantigrade legs and nails instead of claws. That second one is where pantherkin differs as Courtney well proves. From what had looked like normal enough hands, if extra fuzzy and a bit short, extends out some wicked sharp claws.
As any of the swarm cats try to come up and attack the group from behind, she swipes out, her claws glowing a paradoxical white. They radiate both life and death as one cat after another is sliced through. Then moments after every successful attack, a flash of healing magic sparks off of her and onto whoever in the group needs healing more.
When Jason reaches the other side of the swarm he jumps and then lands in a deep squat, spreading threads as far as possible. He braces his legs and then leapfrogs over both Rosha and Courtney. As he sails through the air, he removes the current clad War Stomp and charges up a double dose of Runic Bloom.
He lands near the center between the two swarms as the others get out. From under his feet the petals blossom outwards, shredding the ground as he lands and the petals fly outward, slicing through both swarms. With the Runic Bloom discharged, he clads his feet once more in Never Ending Threads and drops down low for a spin kick. The kick itself doesn’t actually hit all that many cats but each time he connects his foot releases a shower of threads. All around him cats fall to the ground as the Energy threads tear through them and the damage spreads outward.