Training Hall Three

The Academy

“So how often do you get a Chinese guy named Elvis jokes?” Phyliss Clayborn stood ten meters from El with a relaxed manner and a grin on her pretty face. She was tall, about his height, and kept her red hair cut short.

El, never exactly the most confident around women shrugged nervously,” Pretty much all the time.” Why did they tell him to fight a woman for his first sparring match? He had been taught that the protection of women and children was part of a man’s duty. Besides he fought as an animal, was he supposed to bite this girl with the bright eyes and infectious smile?

“Lemme guess, never fought a girl before?”

“How..how did you know?” El was just a bit stunned, perhaps she was a mentalist.

“Read it all over your face big guy. We can think about this in a couple of ways: there are some nasty women out there and you may need to put one down hard before she hurts innocent people. Consider that I am here to become a hero like you, which means this training has to push both of us as hard as possible, if we go easy on each other we won’t be prepared as well as we need to be and people will die in the future.”

Damn, that did make sense. “Well, when you put it that way it would seem to be our duty to go after go leave nothing behind in these matches. How long have you been working on that line by the way.”

“Philosophy major at the University of Calgary, we are supposed to sit around and think crap up.”

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El looked around and noticed that the last few pairs were being led to their circles, time was almost ready to start the match. His opponent began stretching sore muscles in her arms and legs, something El started doing himself. The day’s testing had been most thorough, getting up early in the morning was going to suck. As he stretched it was impossible not to notice how well her t-shirt clung to the curve of her chest.

Concentrate, or she is going to pummel you! This is a battle. To become a hero I must excel at this, and embrace this training. She is right, I must hold nothing back beginning now. Wolf is not sufficient for what is needed here. I must become more.

His thoughts raced over the animals he had seen and studied. The wolf was the first form he shifted into, the one he was most comfortable being; at times more comfortable being Wolf than being Elvis.

Yet there was one form he had in him… Three winters ago he and his father had been caught out in a sudden Yukon storm. As the temperature dropped and the snow piled high, the distance back to the house became an impossibility. Father had collapsed under the shocking cold, his body temperature dangerously low. El had pulled him against a fallen pine tree, it cut down the wind but the snow and temperature would still kill both of them before the night was done. While he had been safe as the wolf, he had not been big or warm enough to shelter Father. He had reached into himself and pulled out another animal, a surprise as El had not believed he was capable of becoming more than a timber wolf.

El breathed deeply, reaching into his inner being feeling for the second form he had discovered. He began to pull it to the surface, feel its essence, its being. It was cranky, confident, territorial, and hungry. A brilliant light strobed through the chamber, and as it dimmed El noticed the multiple rings Phyllis wore were slightly glowing from gems inset in them.

He pushed his breath out forcefully and yelled, his yell deepening, growing in volume to become a roar. His body swelled in seconds as she ran towards him, he dropped to all fours, his head expanding in all directions as his torso grew and thick brown hair sprang up along his entire body. His black unitard faded, melding into his skin as the transformation was complete. His jaws hang open and he slammed one massive paw against the hard flooring.

Phyllis slammed to a halt, seven feet from El. “Holy shit Elvis! You turn into a Grizzly?”