Belina-

Wounded and weary Belina pulls herself from the ground for the thousandth time after 3 days of brutal training, her once merely crude armor now not much more than scraps of metal with some broken bits of wire hanging from it.

Her opponent, a wooden copy of Burgess capable of housing a portion of his consciousness, awaits patiently at the other side of their sparring circle, merely waiting on her to begin her tortur—errr…. “training” again.

After three days of failing to land more than a single hit on this basic sparring partner, even Belina, as motivated as she is, now begins to fear she will not be able to catch up to Nova.

Said man she even now turns an astonished gaze upon as he battles the basic copper version of the Burgess sparring partners in his own training ring. Copper is the first level of partners in the metal tier, while she is still stuck on the beginner wooden one.

Under her watchful gaze, he takes hits and gives them at nearly dizzying speeds, seeming to grow more and more comfortable with his weapon, enhanced body and burgeoning fighting style.

He still falls from time to time, his wounds catching up to him and his opponent stepping back to wait for him to heal, but each time he gets back to his feet with barely a grimace, his determination set in the steel of his brow, his motivation a whetstone to further his power, his strength.

Shaking herself from her downcast thoughts, Belina steels her resolve with the gritting of her teeth and the furrowing of her delicate brow.

And then, with a forceful jerk to tighten the strap of her shield tight to her arm, she walks tall back into training, her pain pressed down under a wave of her growing willpower….

Artemis—

She leaps from one side of the ring to the other in one fluid motion, landing with paws outstretched to minimize sound and allow for a quick reaction if movement becomes necessary once more. After almost a week of nearly constant training, Artemis knows her entire way of movement had changed.

From her earliest memories she always just followed her instincts, in movement, in her choices and actions, even in the love she had for her precious human, who fed her and hugged her and rubbed her belly. And for all that time, that was all she ever thought she could ever want…

But, ever since those glowing lights fell from the sky and their old den was so sadly destroyed, new thoughts, feelings and ideas seemed to appear within her growing mind. They fought with her every movement, making her slower than she could be, weaker…

So, ever since the angry metal man had begun teaching her, she had devoted everything to furthering herself, to honing her reflexes and growing strength in her now unfamiliar massive body.

The old her could have fit inside her current chest with room to spare. Now, her paws shake the ground when she walks, her head knocks over most other people when she bumps them with it like she used to demand pets. All except for her Companion, her Leader, her Family.

She felt no desire to be dominated by some Alpha like others of her breed, she never did. She enjoyed having a friend, a brother, and partner in walks and runs of life. Even now, she can’t imagine any other person or being more central to her life than Him.

Her earliest memories, from when she had only just opened her eyes, were of a gaggle of others like her, fighting for their mother’s milk. She did the best she could, but she did not share the aggression that they did, the greed, the selfishness.

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So, she grew slower, her coat a little less thick, and was overlooked by the other humans that came until only a couple of her siblings remained.

Then, He came….

And he took her to their new den after just looking into her shining blue eyes, his sharp and deep hazel ones brimming with warmth and love from nearly the first moment He laid them upon her.

Even now, as she dodges the second level metal golem, a bronze one, she looks over at Him, her bond pointing in his direction always.

He battles two Platinum golems at once, his movements nearly a blur as he swings his hatchet and fist, a theme, an underlying current of condensed focus and will seeming to birth itself and come ever more into focus with each movement.

Perhaps this was the style the Metal Man hoped to help them condense?

No wonder He was the first to begin forming something like it.

Shaking away her distraction as the bronze golem charges once again, she focuses upon her own style, merely a seedling she can neither feel nor see and yet somehow, she comprehends the barest beginnings of it.

The ice of the frozen wastes.

The cloud of deep breaths exhaling warmth into the oppressive atmosphere.

Her form and warmth a bastion to those that require it, deserve it.

Those innocent of the crimes that sentence many to that frozen Hel, that wasteland her Class has connected her to.

Keeping these images central in her mind, she strikes at the golem with renewed focus as a furious growl escapes her…

Nova—

9 days in, I have finally reached the bastard himself, though I have long suspected even this is but one of his more basic forms, his gestalt consciousness clearly able to spread beyond the half dozen or so I have seen him utilize at once thus far.

His Mithril body shines brighter than the others, making it easier to spot, those crimson robes having some feature that makes them less bright by themselves than they have any right to be.

I adjusted quickly to his wooden versions and the beginning tier metal ones only required half a day or so to combat, but these later versions…

The platinum one required a full day. The titanium another day and some change. The orichalcum, the first of the Mana-formed metals took 2 days.

And now, the first form he had appeared to us in: Mythril.

That speed that originally made him nearly invisible, now only makes him slightly blurred.

His strength, first able to knock me out in a blow, I can now dodge, diffuse or merely take, though I try to avoid it. All of that became possible early on as he instructed me as I fought and moved, how to subconsciously focus my stats, to allow their full potential to erupt from one moment to the next.

By focusing in this manner, I can flare my Constitution on impact, weathering a blow that would have sent me sprawling.

With Dexterity, my blows come faster and more accurate.

My Strength, to hit harder and stop or accelerate on a dime.

The rest of the Attributes follow accordingly.

But what really excites me, what has sent me into a nearly fugue-like meditative state as I fan the flames of its ignition to rise as a burning blaze, is my Style.

While no notifications intrude upon our training, I can vaguely feel the System recognition of my style all the same. I’m not quite sure what the System will call it or what the full scope is quite yet, but the meat and bones of it I have fully comprehended, if not quite the fully fleshed details.

Unsurprisingly, it centers around my very calling, my Soul clearly fully centered on the concept: Nature, itself.

My hatchet now falls like the very downpour of rain falling from the sky, gravity assisting in its descent and landing like the weight of a mountain.

My body moves and flows like a raging river, great boulders and other obstructions but something to move around, as easy as breathing.

My fists strike like the flexible limbs of some great tree, their power only matched by the unorthodox manner in which they seem to blur from one position to the next and then explode with controlled force.

So, with these gains, a wide grin splits my face as I rush at Burgess with all of the eagerness and determination I have had since the very first moment of training, even with only a few hours’ sleep allowed by our trainer each night, to maximize our gains in the time we have.

As he rushes to meet me and I settle deeper into my Style, I once more send a thought of thanks to our System, for allowing me--for allowing us, this opportunity.

To grow in power.

Not just for ourselves.

But for our world’s very survival!