Chapter 27 - Upgrades for Skadi, Trauma for Everyone

  I went back to the sand pit thingy. Arena. Whatever you would call it. The place where I brawled George. Skadi was still there, as was the Judge, Krea, who was giving Skadi belly rubs. It was kind of funny, seeing as Skadi looked like a month old puppy next to the giant woman, instead of the fully grown wolf she was.

  I greeted the Judge: “Hey there, do you mind giving us some privacy, I would like to talk to Skadi for a bit.” She agreed and left. Then I sat down, cross legged and started to communicate with Skadi. I sat down to be on her eye level, but she was still on her back expecting belly rubs. I relented after a short while, which made her engage with me.

  What do you wanna talk about? Fair enough question, I hadn’t divulged the plan for our stay here.

  We are going to spend the winter here. I would like to help you catch up a bit.I hoped she wouldn’t be insulted by the offer.

  Fucking finally! I’ve been waiting to improve properly. First we need to work on my [Shapeshifting] or lack thereof. Can you help? That went better than expected. I gladly helped her.

  We talked about how changing your body feels. What kinds of pain can be expected. How to make certain kinds of alterations. I had help from a class in most cases, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t describe it pretty well. Also with our telepathic link, she could share most of what she feels with me. If I blocked out my own sensations at the same time, I could coach her through it very accurately.

  However I am getting ahead of myself. We didn’t figure a lot of this out on day one. For the most part we just kept talking about the general feel of shapeshifting, and where she should start. We did so until dusk. I had a promise to keep, so Skadi and I moved in the direction of Emma’s house.

  The door wasn’t locked, it didn’t have a lock in the first place, but I was polite enough to not barge in. One knock later, we were standing face to face with Greta, who swiftly greeted us. “Ah, the monster-boy-toy and his smarter half. Are you coming in for dinner, or just to ravish my beloved innocent daughter.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead to emphasise the theatrics of it all. I was not particularly impressed. “Skadi could use a bite, I already ate. Also can Skadi sleep here?”

  Great was very disappointed at our lack of reaction. “Yeah, sure. She can sleep as far away from Emma’s room as possible. I don’t want her innocence to be taken as well.” She just would not stop. Although Skadi’s tail indicated she was enjoying this whole spiel. Fair enough. You go with the elder crazy woman. I am sure you’ll have a lot of fun together.

  Next I had to reclaim my honour … No. I had to reinstate … No. Ok, look! That good-ish comment from Emma kinda hurt. She was the third woman I ever slept with and I thought I had pulled out all the stops last time. I had to repair my self worth. Which meant I had a tremendous incentive to get really inventive.

  I will spare you the details, but I was pretty sure I had rocked her world …

  “Seven out of ten.”

  What?

  “What?” I asked dumbly.

  “Seven out of ten. Better than last time. Still a lot of room for improvement.”

  Welp. That stung. Really, really bad. I rolled over and went to sleep. Which was hard considering I could feel Emma grinning cockily.

  I was awoken the next morning by Emma. “Hey sourpuss, are you up?”

  I opened my eyes to see Emma hovering over me. “I am now.”

  “Great! Let’s have another round right nooooooowwwwwww.” The last bit was elongated, as we fell. The bed had broken again. I would need to come clean about that soon.

  “How the fuck did it break again? I repaired it yesterday.” Emma was lying on top of me, looking very upset.

  Might as well come clean now. “I think it’s me.”

  She looked at me dismissively. “I had heavier boyfriends.”

  “No it isn’t that. I have a Perk. Can’t say where it’s from, but it makes any man-made object degrade at an accelerated pace in my vicinity.”

  Now she was looking more curious than anything. “That … is an interesting Perk. Why didn’t you say so yesterday?”

  “I had hoped it was just a coincidence. The Perk grows in strength with me and I hadn’t expected for it to be so advanced already.”

  There was a pause, Emma looked contemplative. In that light, with her on top of me I realised that she looked like she was really thinking. Not the fake thinking thing people do, where they just try to compensate for being slow, by looking deep in thought. Emma really did look like she was going through multiple Ideas, implications, problems and solutions per second. I think that was the moment I realised that Emma was really smart. A goofball and a bit childish, but undeniably intelligent. I liked how smart she looked.

  A lot.

  How much you ask? Well for the entire time she was thinking, her tits were hanging right in front of me. I didn’t look at them once. Preferring to admire the quiet processes going on behind her eyes.

  Also she still had a really cute nose.

  Eventually she said: “I appreciate the honesty and I can think of a way to solve this particular problem. I’ll have a solution by evening. Now let’s go get breakfast. The mood is kinda dead anyway.” Fair enough. We got up and made ourselves decent.

  When we entered the main hall, George and Greta were already eating. Along with Skadi. I don’t mean Skadi had a plate on the floor. She was sitting on a little stool and her plate was on the table. She was genuinely having breakfast with our hosts. I have to admit that was insanely funny to me. I was struggling to not laugh out loud.

  George looked up from his bread roll to greet us: “Again?”

  I explained my situation again. Surprisingly Greta only slightly raised her eyebrows and George wiped his brow in relief and said: “Good! I almost thought Emma’s worksmanship was sloppy.”

  Crazy people. I was surrounded by Crazy people. Actually, as I had that thought I began thinking about the hospitable nature of the tribe. I had a conversation yesterday with Val about the stature of them, how come they were all freakishly huge. She answered that they likely all had some proficiency in Shapeshifting and the ‘Normal’ Form was just a 90/10 split between Human and Bear. If one were to extrapolate that all of them likely could transform into a bear, then maybe the casual openness stemmed from them not really having anything to fear. A village full of bears was a terrifying prospect. Maybe these people were in fact the Apex Predator in the Area for so long that some of their suspicion had eroded. Based on my introduction, they only really feared intruders as Spies, not as a ticking time bomb. Even the altercation at the gate was only caused by me demonstrating abilities none of them had by leaping up half of their fence and then casually climbing on slick wood. And even then, two guys with little pokers is hardly an armed response to a dangerous intruder. Yep, Ursuns are probably used to being the unchallenged top of the food-chain.

  I froze suddenly. As I had finished that last thought a familiar urge overcame me. All my instincts were telling me to slaughter and eat everyone around me. To cement my title. To punish all challengers to my throne. To advance through victory and bloodshed.

  I took several deep breaths. This was bad. My class was doing things to my mind that I didn’t appreciate. I focused. I concentrated on the fact that not one of them has made any statement about their place in the food chain, and that I had triumphed over one of them in a 1v1 fight already. My urges lessened substantially. They didn’t go away entirely, but they became manageable.

  No one around me said anything, but I knew they all noticed my odd behaviour. Maybe suspicion hadn’t been eroded entirely.

  After everyone had finished breakfast, Skadi and I went out to hunt. We finished with my meal and my quota of game in under an hour. Granted I wasn’t ‘satiated’ exactly, I never fully was, but I had taken in my upkeep for the day. After that Skadi and I continued to practise her shapeshifting.

  She actually got the Skill that day. The success was minor, but as soon as she made a claw longer, we both knew that it was only a matter of time until she would be shapeshifting with the best of them.

  When I say that I do mean she just about managed to alter a single claw by a tiny amount after a good three hours of training.

  Val joined us, as Skadi and I finished up. Her priority was to get Skadi and I to form ‘Mana Defences’ as she called them. Something about “You aren’t defending, you are enduring. And Endurance can only get you so far.” Which I found to be ridiculous. If I wasn’t supposed to endure my way through all my trials then why have the gods invented stubbornness?

  Val just shook her head at that statement. She spent the next hours trying to convince me by casting illusion spells on me. However I could discern all the fake monsters and illusory humans by virtue of my sharpened senses. The smells, or sounds weren’t quite right each and every time. After a few hours Val had conceded defeat and we went home.

  4 months later:

  Emma had woken me up once again. She had become very affectionate ever since she found out she was pregnant with my child. After enjoying our closeness for a while, we heard a scream from the outside. A hysterical, panicked scream, or rather several of those screams, coming from different directions.

  I went into combat mode immediately. Werewolf body, venom-injector-claws and an overall stature of over 3.5 metres. The claws were half a metre alone.

  I burst through the wall of our cabin, barely noticing any resistance. What I saw was terrifying. What should have been a pleasant spring morning instead was a horror scene. Blood everywhere. Corpses strewn about. Most of the dead tribespeople were somewhere between bear and human, likely killed mid-transformation, as they tried to defend themselves. Then I saw what they had tried to defend themselves from.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Shades. Hooded, faceless, black, semi-transparent figures. They were floating and had no obvious legs. They did however have swords. Evil looking longswords made out of, what appeared to be pure shadow. I got a good view of those swords, as I saw one of the shades cleave through Emma’s boss, Devin. The stoic man was cut by that sword like butter is cut by a searing axe. The body offered no resistance at all, against the shadow-blade.

  This was bad. Really bad. I yelled towards my pregnant fiancè: ”Run! I’ll find you after this.” Then I prepared myself for war.

  The shades had heard me, and started to turn towards me. I attacked the nearest one with my claws.

  It was like punching smoke. I barely disturbed whatever shadow-fog the shades were made off. I tried to bite its head off next. This had some minimal effect. Removing some of the fog-matter seemed to slow them down for a bit. At least the shade took a while to regenerate its head. Although it still attacked me. I didn’t let it hit me of course, so I tried some different tactics.

  Heated claws didn’t help. Neither did a blinding flash. Anything but swallowing a piece of them made no impact at all.

  I took several more bites out of the shade, however I still couldn’t go near the sword. For all I knew it instantly killed the soul of anything it touched. As I continued eating the shade, my stomach started to complain. How could this not be nullified by [Internal Immunity]? I was having more and more questions with fewer and fewer answers. The Shade did not care that more than half of it was inside me. It still attacked, as if it had a full body. I was getting desperate, however as I was looking for any advantage I noticed two things.

  One: I was surrounded by a circle of slowly encroaching shades

  Two: Something was weighing me down. Not in a physical sense, but more in the sense that I felt incredibly tired and heavy. Like gravity had increased five fold for me.

  As the shades came closer the pressure increased, until I was unable to move at all.

  Then they started cutting me. Unlike the others they didn’t swing through me and be done with it. They cut off my arms, then my legs, then my torso in tiny increments. I knew these cuts wouldn’t heal. [The Flesh obeys] treated them like they were my form, meaning no healing necessary. When I instructed my internal Mana to regrow the flesh, I just couldn’t. Any mana I sent to the wound was immediately destroyed, or it lost all connection to me.

  After they had carved away all, but my head, heart and spine, one of them Stabbed his blade into my heart.

  Then I was reborn. I was now a shade, like my brethren. And like them I knew my mission ‘Convert the strong, destroy the weak’ I would fulfil my mission.

  I snapped off the bottom part of my spine. From this handle sprouted my very own shadow-blade, as the black cloak rolled down from my head. I would fulfil my mission.

  The village was empty, as it should be, however I knew from my previous life, of two that were still alive. They were weak. They would be destroyed. I would fulfil my mission.

  My old memories were fading fast, however I managed to remember the hiding place my old self and this ‘Emma’ agreed upon. Her trust would be her downfall. I would fulfil my mission.

  I found them as expected. Emma did not recognize me. I did not care. I struck with my blade. Straight through her abdomen. Two lives extinguished. I had fulfilled my mission.

  …

  …

  I awoke screaming and panting. I was lying on the forest floor. Shivering, sweating, tears on my face, and curled up into the foetus position. I screamed some more, for I could not fathom what I had seen. In the back of my mind I could feel Skadi. She was in similar psychological pain. What had happened? Where was I? And why was there still snow? It was spring.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  “VAL!!!! WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?”

  Val was hovering over my prone form. She had a completely neutral expression. “You should not mistake me for someone your morals apply to. If the child thinks it can refuse to learn, then the teacher must use appropriate measures to ensure it progresses. Whether they are pleasant or not.” The last sentence was said with some actual malice. “All that you have seen could have been avoided had you had any form of mana Defences. You cannot stubborn your way through this issue.”

  I decided to firmly ignore Val, because fuck her. I curled up into a ball and cried some more. That illusion was just too much, man.

  After some time, fuck knows how much, I somewhat got a hold of myself. During our shared breakdown either Skadi had shuffled towards me, or the other way around, or both. Anyway, we were lying on the ground together. I stood up, careful not to disturb the wolf. Then I started to whisper-yell at Valeria: “Are you fucking insane?”

  She looked up from a book she was reading. “No, but you seem to have suffered some mental damage.”

  “And now you are being smug? What the fuck, Valeria?”

  She made her book disappear and sighed: “Look. I am going to teach you stuff you need to know. I have centuries of experience on you, so you should really listen to me. The whole traumatising nightmare thing was mainly to show you how dangerous not having certain kinds of defences is. Both aspects. A level ten could have prevented the illusion as a whole with proper technique. The slowing effect of the shades was something you would need to have stats and ability to defend against, but even then it would be very doable.”

  I was about to respond about how ridiculous that rationalisation was, when I noticed something. “Centuries? Plural? I thought you were only 180 years old.” I saw something twitch on her face for a fraction of a fraction of a second. “1.73 centuries of experience then, smartass.”

  She said it like a joke to break the tension, however something told me not to pursue this inquiry further. I was treading very unsteady ground. Better to ignore the age thing for now and pretend her teaching methods aren’t psychotic. I was pretty sure there was something she wasn’t telling me. Even more that is.

  I broke off the conversation to comfort Skadi. Once she regained her composure, we started training mana defences. We were attentive and studious, but we still hadn’t made any real progress.

  We were heading back towards the Village, when I remembered a question I had earlier: “Hey, Val. I’ve noticed that I got some weird instincts from my class. Like, beyond liking raw meat and stuff. How concerned should I be?”

  She looked me up and down, before responding: “I keep forgetting how uneducated you are.” She shook her head slowly “Classes are shaped by us, as much as they shape us. You wouldn’t have been offered the Class, if these ‘Instincts’ weren’t inside you all along. The class just puts them into focus. Any fucked up desire you feel ‘from your class’ is just something you have always had, but weren’t ready to admit to yourself.” She pinched my cheek “You simply have an innate desire to dominate and kill, my little monster in training.”

  “Fuck off, Val.” I swatted her hand away. “So what? I’m just a psychopath. Am I just fucked in the head?”

  She shrugged “Eh, everyone is. Everyone has fucked up desires sometimes. You maybe a bit more than most, but it isn’t world ending. The main reason some people don’t rape, kill and steal is not the morality of those actions, but the likelihood of getting caught and the severity of the punishment. You are on a path that would make getting caught extremely difficult and the punishment most likely trivial. The point of power is, and has always been, to be able to do whatever the fuck you want. The sooner you learn to embrace that, the less problem you will have with your intrusive thoughts.”

  “Hmm. It sounds kind of nice the way you put it. But still, I know that I don’t want to slaughter the Village”

  “Yeah, but you do want to know whether you could. If they could stop you if you really tried.”

  Damn, she had me there. I thought about this weird situation until we arrived back at the village.

  At the village, George was somehow already waiting for me. I dropped off my required dead animal and greeted him. “Hello, there. How did you know I was arriving right now?”

  He smiled and held up a piece of parchment. “Someone left this on our dining room table.” I took it. It read ‘Shifty is coming back in 20 minutes.’ I looked around for Val, but she had already disappeared. This was kind of invasive, but I didn’t really mind. At least I saved a bit of time.

  “Weird. Anyway, I have a question. Do you think you could train Skadi in close quarters combat too?”

  George stroked his beard while thinking, then he answered: “That should be possible. But I want twice your daily carcasses in return.” I discussed this with Skadi, but she was Ok with it as long as I was the one to haul the things here. Since they didn’t really weigh all that much to me, I agreed.

  We made our way to the ‘Arena’. The rules for today were really simple. Nothing but a humanoid body, first blood wins. I didn’t last more than ten minutes. Granted, I didn’t bleed more than a drop, but one good punch on the nose was enough for that one drop. It was just like yesterday. I couldn’t land a single clean hit, while he practically ran circles around me.

  Eh, what can you do? It was a good learning experience at least. Although having been beaten, even if just by the technicalities of the game, really stung something deep within me. My class didn’t like the feeling at all.

  Next was Skadi, apparently the first training session was free. George asked a bit about Skadi’s capabilities and then actually did drills with her. It started with some exercises about spacing in a fight. I didn’t really pay attention, I had to press down my desire to eviscerate George and feast upon his entrails. Not the most pleasant of thought processes.

  When they were finished a panting George told me: “I am going to join you on your hunt tomorrow. I want to see how you really fight.”

  Ahh, perfect. A way to establish non-lethal dominance. That calmed my class down. “Sure, buddy. I was getting anxious about being under your restrictions. A proper fight you will see.” He looked pretty miffed at my use of ‘Buddy’ but my rather predatory grin seemed to stifle his response. He left soon after, so Skadi and I sat down to practise. She focused on her claws, trying to make them sharper and pointier. I meanwhile worked on a ranged attack. My current frontrunner was some way to shoot out my blades. The Idea seemed sound, but I had never eaten or dissected anything with a similar ability, so I was on my own. I dared not complain, since Skadi was doing everything the way I had to do now.

  We worked mostly in silence until sundown. Skadi asked for my input here and there, but that was about it. At dusk her claws were noticeably sharper. I was proud of her. I meanwhile had only managed to detach my blades, but I couldn’t get any kind of propulsion on them. At any rate, we decided to call it a day. With Skadi being able to Shapeshift and getting taught CQC, I was confident she would catch up in time.

  I had one task left. Emma had agreed to meet at the main gate at sundown, we were going on our first proper date. Skadi meanwhile was going home… well, Emma’s home. Although Greta and Skadi were apparently going along great. I didn’t quite know how they were communicating, but then Skadi understood speech perfectly well and was expressive enough to bring across basic emotions.

  I met Emma as agreed. She was looking rather annoyed for some reason. “Why exactly are we meeting here? It’ll be pitch black and freezing in an hour at most.” I looked up, the sky was clear and slowly getting darker. “Yep. That’s the point. Come on, I want to show you something.” I motioned the guards to open the gate. They said something about how they won’t open it again, when it’s properly dark. I waved them off. I knew what I was doing.

  I trekked into the forest with Emma. I was protected by my fur and [Flexible Insulation], while she was wearing a thick winter coat. It was about an hour and a half until we reached the tree I selected earlier that day, we passed the time with some idle chit chat and she told me some ursunite gossip. Apparently her Carpentry Master was boinking some barely 20 year old boy and the old wives of the Village didn’t know whether to be offended by the age difference or the gayness. We had a few good jokes and chuckles about that. Bigots have always been my favourite people to laugh at. That is they will be. Or will continue to be? I am confusing myself with the timeline here. Anyway, we arrived at the tree:

  I offered her my arms and said: “Would you like to hop on?” She just stared at me blankly. Fair enough, I didn’t explain all that much. I put both of my feet on the tree, they stuck thanks to [Internal Mana Manipulation]. I offered her my arms again. “I wouldn’t have you climb yourself, on our first date.”

  She finally understood and climbed on top of me. In all honesty it was less ‘me carrying her’ and more ‘her lying on my chest, while my arms secured her’. Awkward as it must have looked, I made my way up the tree. Once at the top my preparations were made clear. I had chopped off the top most part of the tree and filed down the cut-off-point until it was fit for sitting. I placed Emma on her designated seat. She hadn’t looked away from me, as we ascended, because she had clung to me like a vice. As she sat somewhat secure she finally asked: “Ok, so why are we up here.” I was still ‘standing’ on the side of the tree. I simply pointed towards the sky. The sun had fully gone down, so the cloudless sky could present its star studded majesty for full effect. “Yeah, that’s the Sky, I have seen it bef…” She stopped mid sentence, as she took in the full breath of the firmament’s beauty. I had been right. “Light hides most of the stars. Only in real Darkness does the full picture emerge.”

  She was looking at the sky, slack jawed. She hadn’t made a sound since she craned her neck upwards. I let her gawk a bit more, as I transitioned from the side of the tree to one of its branches, so I wasn’t at an angle in relation to Emma. Also so that I was in range to grab her, should she fall. After a few minutes she finally closed her mouth and looked back down. “I never knew. I thought there were only a few dozen stars in the night sky.” I smiled warmly “So did I, until I left my Village. It’s amazing how a change in perspective can change perception, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I apologise for my scepticism earlier, this was absolutely worth it.” She was still looking around as she spoke. The nebulas had her especially fascinated. “That isn’t all. I realise that I am an intruder in your world, and that you don’t know much about me, so I thought I’d start with a show of faith.” She was focused on me now. I took a step back on the branch, so that she could get a good look and began to slowly change. I could do it in an instant, but that would have hurt and even through everything I’ve been through, I still didn’t like pain and avoided it where possible. She sat up straighter as my fur started to recede. Her Eyes went wild as I began to noticeably shrink. When I was done she stood up on the same branch I was on. “I appreciate the thought, but I am not into little boys.” I chuckled and answered: “No! No! This is me! This is what I looked like before I became a shapeshifter.”

  Now she looked more confused than anything, although there seemed to be a bit of disgust in there. "So you looked like that… what? Six years ago?” She then muttered something like “Still kind too young” under her breath. It was my turn to be confused. “No, I already told you in front of your parents, two days ago. This” I gestured down my body “was five months ago.”

  She was shocked, she tried to take a step back, she missed, she fell.

  Fuck!

  I tried to reach for her, but my newly ensmallened figure didn’t have the necessary arm length for that. Double Fuck!

  I needed to focus. I put all my 70 Intelligence and 83 Wisdom to work devising and executing a plan to save her. A quarter of a second later I had one. Not Ideal, but workable. I squatted down as far as possible and dove off the branch with a tiny jump. Once I was under the branch I extended my legs, both with muscles and [Shapeshifting], to push against the branch as hard as possible. I gained a lot of speed that way, so I was able to reach Emma by the time she was halfway down the tree. Once I caught her I used my momentum to spin us around, so that I was holding her to my chest, my back racing towards the ground. Next I poured all my mental energy into growing as much fat and hair out of my front and back as possible. When we hit the ground I felt some significant impact on my back, but I barely felt Emma impacting on me, so I hoped she was safe. I receded all my padding to check on her. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

  Emma stood up from me and dusted herself off. “No, no. I’m fine. Thank you! You saved my life! You … hahahaha” She doubled over laughing. I have to admit that I had to lock absolutely ridiculous. I had the naked body of my 17 Year old self, but with freakishly long legs, due to my stunt during the fall. I quickly changed back into my normal giant form. Emma regained her composure at that point. “I am so sorry. Really. Thank you for saving my life.” She continued in a sultry voice “I’ll have to reward you later.” I guess the evening could have ended worse. And I think she really did appreciate the date. Although to be honest, between the adrenaline rush - which I was realising I had missed more than I’d like to admit - and our general horniness I didn’t really think about anything but my reward. I took her in my Arms and ran full tilt towards the village. The last thing I really recall is that Emma had replaced her bed with a few thick furs on the floor. Awesome, no more crashing the bed.