Bliss [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ADCreHeyOqaCVxnIhQWzjyZaoRRC5c_UsSn-SAOdkHsYl_L47ik5kpNNNSXCeo4g3j57CZ24-M1B_QkngzJXa_agJa-o4Nf4CiGHarHJ6KPTL_FdZoT5UShjmjBHGbPYlcTkUZfz9XaDAD-DeNmgWPrp7rww=w621-h931-s-no?authuser=0]
Phoenix followed closely behind Paul who were both dressed in the standard training garb of the AOA. It looked like a tight cycling uniform made from silvery spandex-like material that clung to her form and was hard to grasp, causing things to slide across the material rather than catching and tearing it.
While Paul’s very fit and muscular form filled out the outfit, she felt… gangly beside him. Her thin frame did not make her feel like she had much to show off and she kept her hair free to provide slightly more coverage.
As they walked down the hall Paul paused and she looked around him to see why only to have her jaw drop. A small black kitten was dragging what looked like a dead body that had been mauled into a bloody mess by the collar down the hall towards them before turning into one of the side rooms.
She glanced up at Paul and asked, “Um… did the kitten just murder an Adventurer?”
The paladin just chuckled and shook his head as he continued down the hall and into the training room at the end of it. She had glanced through the doorway the dead body had vanished into and hadn’t seen the victim but was unnerved by following the streaks of blood down the hall to the scene of the crime.
The training room reminded her a lot of the arena she had met Warrior in, with its canvas mat flooring and various weapons on racks against the walls. Paul had walked over to one of those racks and was currently inspecting some of the blunt practice swords while she scanned the room for any signs of the murderer.
She knew this was where that Adventurer had been killed based on the red stains all over the floor but she didn’t see any obvious weapons covered in it as well. The Wayfarer was a little disturbed by the stains seeming to slowly vanish into thin air and she walked towards the larger puddle near the center and bent down to make sure she wasn’t imagining things.
“It’s enchanted,” Paul’s voice said over her shoulder and she involuntarily jumped at the sudden sound. He looked amused as he explained, “Self-cleaning and self-repair enchantments. Less clean-up between matches.”
“But it’s eating the evidence!” she said in alarm.
“Evidence?” he asked in confusion.
“Yes! The clues needed to catch the-” she trailed off as her eyes landed on the small black kitten sitting in the doorway and staring at her with large emerald eyes.
“You must be the sparring partner I requested?” Paul inquired.
Phoenix did a double take to clarify that he was indeed speaking towards the furry suspect, which actually seemed to give a subdued nod of its tiny head, then questioned in a worried hushed tone, “Paul… Are you talking to the cat? And did it understand??”
He just chuckled at her, “You really need to work on those aura senses more, young one.”
She scrunched her nose at the slight scolding and hesitantly expanded her aura to brush against the kitten’s own. Blinking in surprise, she glanced back up to confirm with her mentor, “Crystal Caste?” Her eyes narrowed at it slightly, “Doesn’t feel like other Casters though… is it a… what did you call them? Avals? The animals with Castes,” she tried describing.
Paul shook his head slightly, “Yes and no. It might take much more practice and experience but I can tell she’s a transfigured Caster. Guessing that she’s an aval would be expected, though. It’s good for you to get exposed to the difference.
“What’s your name, Adventurer?” He asked the cat.
“Bliss,” a quiet voice stated simply from the doorway.
Phoenix’s eyes locked on the tiny creature once more and she whispered to her mentor, “Did the cat just speak words or is my translation ability more powerful than I thought?”
The ex-paladin chuckled again, “Not a cat. A Caster,” he reiterated then gestured towards the small feline as he reminded, “Remember how I mentioned transfigured Casters when you asked about werewolves?” she nodded and he continued, “Well, she’s a Chimera. Or perhaps a Shifter?”
He directed that last question towards the Caster cat and the small creature gave another nod and this time she saw it open its fang-filled maw and say, “Chimera” then, to her horror, lifted a bloody paw and began licking the remaining gore off the pad.
Her horror was further exacerbated by her traitorous mentor adding, “Bliss is who the AOA sent to be your sparring partner today.”
“You want me to fight the murder-cat?!” she exclaimed, finally straightening and taking a few steps back from the tiny beast that might be fooling everyone else with its adorable looks but she saw what happened to its victims.
This time Paul did laugh aloud as he gestured for the kitten fiend to enter the arena, “Yes, actually,” he managed to say after quickly calming, “I want you to get used to fighting something smarter than most monsters,” he explained.
Bliss padded forward on silent feet and onto the arena mat as the soft voice questioned, “More human.. Or less?”
Paul seemed to contemplate the question a moment before asking, “Can you do something a bit more her size and on two feet? We’re going to start off with simple hand-to-hand combat so nothing too exotic, if possible.”
The kitten tilted its head once more in confirmation and Phoenix wasn’t sure if she wanted to fan-girl about magic or run away in fear as the Chimera pushed off the floor with its front paws which quickly grew with the rest of its body until the creature was now her size but still had the same black fur all over and emerald eyes watching her carefully. Her attention was caught by the long tail flicking back and forth behind the killer-cat-beast and she wondered if the creature was excited for its next meal.
A small part of her was internally squealing at seeing an anthropomorphic panther furry in the flesh but at the same time it was terrifying to think she might end up like that bloody corpse the cat had dragged out earlier.
“Excellent. Thank you, Bliss,” Paul stated politely, interrupting her musings, the ex-paladin had never been this polite with her before, “Now if you don’t mind just a quick spar with fists and feet. No claws or teeth for now,” he added and Phoenix eyed him warily at the implication that he would eventually let Bliss try to maul her to death.
Bliss remained silent with another nod but let her fingers show compliance as she stretched the massive hand paws but no claws were extended like she would have expected. Perhaps the threat of an Emerald Caster in the room was enough to protect her from the same fate as that other lone Adventurer. The Chimera seemed to at least be following commands from him well.
Paul seemed to observe the form as he mentioned, “This will work nicely. Looks similar to a felion.”
“I think my ritual tome mentioned that species,” Phoenix replied, “It didn’t describe them though, they were just listed as a requirement. Are they all cat-people?”
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He nodded in response, then eyed Bliss and clarified, “Yes but they normally wear clothes over the fur. Now, square up.”
As they took their positions, Paul began lecturing for Phoenix, “The Trials will consist of various tests that you must pass in order to prove your suitability as an Adventurer. Survival, Independence, Teamwork, Judgment, and Potential.
“Right now, we’re going to focus on the independence part. We need you to turn those new techniques you learned from mental notes to physical reactions. We want them to become second nature but that takes practice. Now start.”
Phoenix could see the palm fly towards her chest but she was caught off guard by the sudden command and threat that she was slow to react and stumbled back a few steps. She didn’t wait for the murder-furry to attack again after that as she quickly took the stance that had been seared directly into her mind and matched the following series of quick jabs Bliss levied upon her.
The motions felt natural but Paul was right, she was slow and her muscles unused to following the commands her mind was trying to give them. It caused her to stutter and second-guess herself which resulted in more strikes landing on her than not but Paul didn’t call for them to stop or slow.
“Unfortunately, practice takes time. Time we are extremely limited on,” he continued explaining as she continued stumbling through the fight, “Only four days between now and the tests means we have to push you harder than what’s normally acceptable,” he said firmly as he seemed to anticipate their movements and was always able to stay just outside the path of their battle.
Phoenix had almost missed the furry black foot swinging towards her thigh but she managed to move out of its path. However, this caused the flow of her movements to break from what the form wanted and she stumbled trying to get back into position. Her distraction cost her with another fist to her torso that caused her to wince and she reactively pushed Bliss away with her [Ruler of Relativity] ability.
She heard the sound of canvas tearing as she flew backwards and saw massive bone-white claws dig into the mat from the beast’s large feet that even sported reverse knee joints that could likely send the large cat hurtling forward to close the little distance she gained in an instant. If those curved daggers came out of the Chimera’s hands… Well, the state of the corpse made perfect sense now.
“No powers!” Paul snapped. Causing both of them to freeze for a moment at the flare of aura, “You’re supposed to be practicing your martial techniques first,” he reminded, then commanded, “Continue.”
The foot claws retracted as Bliss launched herself forward simultaneously at the Emerald Caster’s order and it was just as Phoenix had imagined with those powerful legs closing the distance within the span of a breath. She tried to keep up, realizing that Bliss was matching her speed so long as she didn’t get distracted or make a mistake.
“You should be able to accomplish survival easily enough since you already proved it to me by lasting more than a week alone in the forest before you were even a Caster,” he stated as he continued to observe their match.
As Phoenix was slowly acclimating to the rhythm of matching strike with block she began to incorporate her own offensive strikes into counter attacks. Bliss seemed to respond to the change not just by blocking but by adding in her own twist of feints and parries that sent Phoenix’s fists and feet flying or hitting nothing but air and causing her to stumble. Every stumble was met with light punishment in the form of a controlled jab or kick and Phoenix was very aware that the murder-cat was playing with its food.
“Teamwork will be difficult for us to practice but if you keep your mouth shut and your ears open, I think you’ll be okay in this respect. Keeping your head down and following orders, like you did when we were in that Reality Rift, will get you through for now, at least when you’re uncertain about things. If you do know the answer to something, however, be sure to voice it.
“Potential is not something we can really train for but I’ve seen enough that any good Assessor should be able to see what I saw,” he added as almost an afterthought.
It was enough to slightly distract her from the battle at hand as she asked, “What did you see?”
She was quickly punished for her distraction by a quick sweep of her legs and suddenly she was out of breath, staring at the ceiling, and trying to process how she ended up there. A panther's face entered her field of view, looking down at her and she was wondering if she was imagining the pity mixed with amusement in those slitted emerald eyes.
The disapproval in the gold eyes that looked down on her next was definitely not a hallucination though as Paul said, “We might need to shift our focus to Judgment instead.”
Phoenix let out a pained groan and managed a weak, “Ha. Ha,” before taking her mentor’s outstretched hand and standing up once more.
“You laugh but they’re going to judge you for how you judge situations,” Paul pointed out as he released her and took a step back, “You need to learn how to quickly assess a situation and respond appropriately. Whether that means choosing which monsters to confront yourself or talking when you should be fighting.”
“How exactly am I going to learn battle tactics in less than four days?” Phoenix asked with exasperation.
Her mentor then gave her a rare smirk as he answered with a hint of snark she had only heard once before, “Practice.”
She groaned and was going to argue but was cut off by his next command of “Continue,” and found herself fighting the flurry of fur that was methodically pushing her harder and harder and dealing out fluffy punishment.
After a half hour of this torture, Paul would have them pause and have Phoenix drink a stamina potion, which caused her to grumble about the cheating panther-person not even looking slightly winded. Then he would make her heal any bruises and have Bliss begin the onslaught anew. It became a vicious cycle of practice, until knowledge became action and action became reaction.
She wasn’t sure at first if there was enough time for her to become even half-way decent in time for the Trials but after a half dozen cycles even she noticed the vast improvement as she took less punishment and landed more strikes of her own.
Eventually they moved on to daggers versus claws. It became a bit more familiar for her to fight like this after having spent over a week on the tundra with Paul practicing this style. She internally cringed at the memories, however, since now she knew how terrible her form had been.
Bliss, on the other hand, seemed to be unfazed by her blade strikes and she had to reluctantly admit that the transfigured Adventurer was a good sparring partner. The Chimera had the skill to match her own level and not just pummel her into the mat, helping guide her growth by not going too easy on her either. Bliss pushed her when she needed it and backed off if she seemed to be straining beyond her current limits.
Phoenix knew she had to push past those limits, though, and Bliss seemed up to the task as the Wayfarer refused to back down and continued clashing on the mat that was slowly becoming covered in sweat and blood that was continually cleaned up after them by the built in enchantments.
It wasn’t until long after the sun had gone down that Paul finally called a halt to the session and offered a small pouch towards Bliss as he said, “This was excellent, Bliss. If you wouldn’t mind meeting here again tomorrow, I would love to see how Phoenix fares against your other, more exotic, forms.”
Bliss took the proffered bag and curiously peeked inside and Phoenix had to suppress a giggle at the thought of curious cats when in a very cat-like motion the Chimera tilted her head to the side for a few moments as though processing something. Then the Crystal Caster nodded in the affirmative and asked, “Time?”
“Does noon work?” he inquired, “I have some things to address and Phoenix has to stop by the AOA for her trial pass.”
The panther-woman simply nodded once more and shifted back into the kitten form Phoenix had first seen faster than she could actually process and she had a brief spell of confusion as she wondered where the bag vanished to. That question died in her throat, however, as the murder-kitten pounced, using her like a ladder, before plopping over her shoulder.
Phoenix’s terror at thinking her time had finally arrived for the demon-cat to eat her was quickly replaced by worry that the kitten was melting as it languidly sprawled over her. She had no idea what was happening until the rumbling started and Phoenix looked incredulously at Paul and whispered in horror, “Did she just fall asleep on me?!”
Paul’s golden eyes sparkled with amusement as he simply confirmed, “It appears so.”
“What do I do now?” she asked in growing panic.
“Well, I’m not your father. I’m not going to say no to taking stray pets home,” he pointed out, not able to keep the corners of his mouth from curling upwards.
“She’s not a pet,” the Wayfarer argued in a hushed tone, afraid to wake the boneless fiend, “She’s a murder-cat.”
Her mentor laughed again, not seeming to care about waking the furry scarf, as he clarified, “That other Adventurer was fine. Bliss took them towards the clinic where new Healers train. You really think I would just let her take away a dead body without asking questions?”
Phoenix frowned for a long moment replaying the scene in her mind before mumbling, “No…”
He surprised her again by ruffling her hair and teasing, “We’ll really focus more on the Judgment part tomorrow.”
She swatted his hand away before following him out of the building and back to her dorm room where they parted ways. Bliss remained asleep the whole way and as Phoenix carefully maneuvered the critter onto the foot of her bed, the kitten looked… well, blissfully unaware.