Chapter 210: 210
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~~
Trinity
~~
After my eventful day, and night, training my witch side and visiting the Gods in my bed, followed by a much needed day of rest, I was back to training my Goddess given wolf abilities. I needed to get a hand on it and learn how to summon a specific ability at will.
Over the course of several days I practiced my howl. The one that would push things back like I had sent a sonic wave blast or at least a big gust of wind. At first, it was difficult to perform, I would howl and nothing would happen. But I never gave up.
After nearly a week of consistent practice I could force the howl every time. I would feel the build up of magic, the tightening of my vocal cords, and I knew that I could do it whenever I wanted. But, sadly, it was not something I could do in my human form.
For practice I would have different items stacked in various places. I needed to control the size and force of the howl. That was more difficult than doing the howl on command. I wanted to be able to hit a small target among other objects, to be able to knock over several large objects at a time, and to hit targets farther away.
Obviously, large objects right in front of me were easier to knock down or send flying as it took little to no concentration of the magic. But it was difficult to narrow that stream of power to a small, controlled blast. I had managed it though, and now I could make a sonic blast that was only about as big around as my little finger. And with some effort I could manipulate the blasts to move them around, swirling to the side or up and down. That allowed a lot more precision.
After we perfected my howl, we moved onto trapping, and not the type a survivalist would do. I worked on creating cages with my ice magic and freezing people in place. I also wanted to work on forming cages of lightning, fire, and wind. Different people would require different elements.
I also started practicing with earth as an element. I didn't know if Noah would be happy about sharing his element with me or not, but oh well. Earth was not hard for me to figure out as I loved nature anyway. I spent a good part of my childhood just laying about the grass, trees, and dirt back home. I loved being close to the earth all my life.
With earth magic I was able to shoot clumps of dirt, mud, and chunks of rocks at different targets. There was a lot of taget practice in my training. I successfully formed an earth cage to go with the other elements. And as I got better and better I was able to form earth golems and make them move for me. I even infused those golems with some wind magic and made them move with surprising speed.
Something else that I did that I found super cool, was cause the earth to swallow people. Okay, well, they weren't truly swallowed. But the earth did open at their feet and they dropped into an oozing mud that went halfway up their body before becoming super hard. They were trapped there until I released them.
And as far as my cages went, I had decided on what was the best option. I formed a cage from the earth, it could be as big or as small as I needed. Then, I would wrap that cage in the other elements, even if they broke the stone bars, they would then have to break free of the other barriers.
Oddly enough, with all my elemental magic, and my ease of using earth magic, I was having trouble with plants. That seemed to be unique to Cedar for now. Oh well, I couldn't complain too much, and I could always get the hang of it later.
After we worked for a while on the trapping techniques, I moved on to my different animal forms. I had already guessed that I could turn into any animal in the shifter world, and it turned out I was right. And I had a lot of options to pick from.
I had turned into a bear, bunny, and tiger before. All the animals I had become before stayed looking like my wolf form, white and shining with marks all over. But that wouldn't be a good camouflage would it.
I practiced a lot of different animals every day. I became an antelope, a bear, a bunny, a cheetah, a house cat, a deer, a dog, an eagle, an elk, a fox, a jaguar, a lion, a monkey, a parrot, a tiger, and a zebra. It appeared that I wasn't actually limited to just shifter animals, I could become any animal there was as long as I could picture it.
At first all my animal forms looked just like my wolf form. I was constantly snow white with blue, red, and purple marks. But as the days crept by, and with a lot of intense concentration, I was able to make my animal forms look like just any other from the wild.
I could be a regular white, black, or brown bunny. My fox was the usual rusty and white colors. My bears could be a regular white polar bear, a brown bear, or a black bear. The tigers, lions, cheetahs, jaguar, zebra, and parrots all had the proper colors and markings. My house cat and dog looked like anything you would see in someone's house.
And then there was my wolf form. I could now disguise that as well. I chose a very light silver that looked nearly white but had the darker colors streaking down my back. I felt weird, off somehow, to see my wolf looking so different. But if I was ever bored of the look, I could change it anytime.
This massive amount of work took me more than a few weeks to accomplish. But, I know that it was well worth it to see the looks of joy on everyone's faces as I managed to do something new. I was getting stronger, and I was slowly building up my body's tolerance for my abilities.
I still had witch training here and there as well, I needed to split my time obviously. I had so much I needed to learn, and I didn't want it to take too long before we went back home. Or before I went to hunt down Edmond.
After all my magic training, I worked on physical training, or combat training really. I still practiced a lot with my arrows and my howl. I could never get enough target practice in, apparently.
There was one thing I needed to learn that I had not had much practice in before. Almost none to be exact. I needed to practice fighting in my wolf form.
Back home, after I had my first shift,I had trained with Reece for a few weeks before everything got busy. But the problem was, he had seemed afraid to actually teach me how to fight in wolf form.
I don't know if he wanted to keep me away from fights or he was afraid I would get hurt. But whatever the reason was, I needed to learn this stuff whether he liked it or not. This was my world now, and there was no changing that.
Lucas was brought in to help me with combat combat training, effectively replacing Sebastian and Hideki who had been with me this whole time so far. And with Lucas training me, it meant that Reece and the others would be training with me as well.
I nearly fell over when I saw Reece's face the day we were to begin training together. He was so shocked that he turned as white as a ghost.
"Come on big boy, you're not afraid I'm going to hurt you, are ya?" I taunted him as he looked at me with concern. The look of worry instantly left his face, only to be replaced by one of arrogance and challenge, and of course lots of teasing fun.
"Oh no, baby, I'm worried you won't be able to keep up with me." His heated look was enough to get my juices flowing, but there were too many people around for that. Right now I had to focus on training, later, much later, I could follow that line of thinking.
Once we were all prepared we began our training. The others had been fighting together and training with Lucas for a long time while I was still a newbie. Being so green, as Shane was so happy to call me, I started training directly with Lucas.
Lucas was a great teacher, and he had had a long time to perfect his fighting style and many others. He was an expert in hand to hand combat and different ways to fight with no hands at all. It was going to be an interesting time to say the least.
After I shifted, away from everyone else, we got down to business. Lucas showed me different grapples, one that worked with biting and wrapping your front legs around your opponent. It was hard to get used to at first, all the fighting I had done before had included hands for grabbing someone with.
I admit, biting my opponent made things easier, but it was still different, to say the least. And needless to say I was uneasy with the idea of biting anyone here, I didn't like hurting people, especially good people. But Lucas just shook his head at me.
"You're our queen, it is our job to train you. If we get hurt we will heal, you know that." His voice held a slight edge to it, as if he were trying to anger me into training for real.
"You need to give her a clear target to fight against." I heard Reece's voice as he slowly made his way up to us.
"What do you mean, Sir?" Lucas wondered when he heard Reece's words.
"Like an enemy she wouldn't mind destroying. She needs to imagine she is fighting Edmond, or one of his cronies."
"Like that will be possible. Reece, what the hell are you thinking? If you're this far gone already, I should put you out of your misery Old Yeller."
"You know I'm not past my prime yet, Little Bunny." He smirked at me after I called him on that bullshit. "You need to train to fight Edmond, so you need to fight us like we're Edmond."
"But I don't want to hurt anyone." I felt my face blanche at his declaration. I needed to fight them so I could fight Edmond, that was so not going to happen.
"Do you want to hurt Edmond?" He asked me. "Or do you plan to let him get away?"
"What the fuck do you think?" I could feel my anger rising, the growl growing in my chest as he accused me of that level of treachery. "I would sooner kill him than let his ass get away with what he's done. In fact, that's exactly what I plan to do to him."
"Good, now use that anger and fight me."
He didn't shift into his wolf form, he stayed in his human shape, but I didn't care. Edmond would be in that type of body too, so I needed to know how to use a wolf's skill against a man shaped opponent. He's only man shaped because that cowardly, child stealing, family destroying piece of shit, Edmond, was nothing like a man.
I leapt at Reece, my teeth bared and claws aimed at his chest. He's the one that asked for this, and he was going to be the one to deal with the consequences later.
I hit him with full force, square in his chest. The momentum of my leap toppled him over and we fell to the ground in a rolling heap. One flipping over the other, we rolled a few times until he twisted his body and pinned me to the ground and blocked the light of the sun with his broad shoulders.
He hovered over me, acting as the moon in a solar eclipse, breathing heavily and grinning darkly.
"This is why I want you away from the fighting." His voice, his words, pissed me off. He wanted to lock me in a bubble for the rest of my life, I'll be damned if I let him do that.
"Fuck off, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore and you can't tell me what to do anymore either. This is my time to shine."
I brought my back legs up under him, planting them right about where his belly button was, then I kicked with all the force I could muster. Even in human form he outclassed me with sheer size. I barely managed to move him to the side when I pushed him.
"See what I mean, Little Bunny, you can't take me on." He was looking at me with dark eyes, half desire and half anger. He wasn't angry at me, but for me.
"You're stronger and faster than almost any man alive, possibly every man alive. You've been gifted with strength by the Goddess, not once but twice." I snarled at him. "If I beat you, or even come close to it, you need to admit how strong I am."
"Fine, if you even get close to beating me in a fight, I will never say anything about you joining a fight again." His voice held a note of mischief. He thought he had this fight in the bag with his size, strength, and training. Yeah, well, I've got my own strengths too and he can't match those.
"You better not go back on your words, Fido, cause I hate liars." I glared at him with defiance practically oozing out of my eyes.
I knew I wasn't going to beat Reece in a fair wolf fight. But I wasn't just a wolf now was I? I had many tricks up my sleeve, and the point of me learning so much is so I could put it all to good use.
I Quickly shifted into his favorite thing to think of me as. One minute he held himself propped above my wolf form, pressing my front legs to the ground. The next, I was twisting to the side and rolling out from under him while he looked confused at the empty space where my head was just a few moments ago.
As soon as I had rolled and hopped out from under his large, looming presence, I shifted again. I spun on the spot as a rabbit for just a second and the next I was standing above him on my hind legs, looking down at him from a higher place than I had thought I'd ever be while standing on my own two legs. This time I took the form of a bear. These front legs would be larger and more powerful when holding a prey in place.
I didn't waste any time though, I just lunged forward and wrapped my front legs around his upper body, pinning his arms to his chest. I was slightly stronger in this form, but not strong enough it seemed. No sooner had I pinned his arms to his sides did he start to force them back out. With his muscles flexing and his shirt ripping under the strain to the fabric, he pushed my massive, claw tipped paws away from him and pushed me backwards.
I stumbled for just a moment as he rose to his feet and started toward me. I didn't waste a second of my time though, I knew he was coming. I shifted again, this time to the form of an eagle, soaring into the air. I flew higher and higher, ten feet, twenty, thirty, finally I was at least three hundred feet off the ground. Thanks to the excellent vision of eagles, I could still see everyone on the ground clear as day.
I hovered for just a moment as I planned my next move. Once I had my mind made up I pointed my beak down and pressed my wings back, driving straight toward my husband's face. I knew he would move at the last second, out of the way of the leathally sharp beak, while still trying to catch me out of the air.
Once I was close enough for him to step to the side, just like I predicted he would, I shifted. He thought I was going to attack as an eagle, but he didn't expect the three hundred pound tiger that landed with deadly accuracy right against his chest.
Reece was knocked off his feet instantaneously, slamming onto the ground with the wind being forcefully pushed from his lungs. I heard his head slam against the ground and the crack of more than one of his ribs from the impact, but I knew he would heal and I had to prove myself here.
With my face just inches from his I snarled at him, baring my wickedly sharp, three inch long, snowy white teeth. It would have taken me no time at all to rip his throat out if he were a real enemy. It would have been done in an instant while he was trying to catch his breath. I had won this round and he had to admit that.
"Fine, I yield. You would have killed me just now if I was Edmond."
"Not to mention, he wouldn't have your advantages." I reminded him.
"The strength and speed?" He wondered.
"Knowing what I can do." I told him with a smile in my voice. "But I'm glad you admitted defeat. Save some face in front of your friends sweetheart." I joked with him before licking the side of his face with a quick flash of my large, pink tongue.
That was the end of me holding back. I started fighting with them for real, and I quickly learned everything Lucas had to offer. I would add it to everything else to make a style that was all my own.
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~~
Trinity
~~
After my eventful day, and night, training my witch side and visiting the Gods in my bed, followed by a much needed day of rest, I was back to training my Goddess given wolf abilities. I needed to get a hand on it and learn how to summon a specific ability at will.
Over the course of several days I practiced my howl. The one that would push things back like I had sent a sonic wave blast or at least a big gust of wind. At first, it was difficult to perform, I would howl and nothing would happen. But I never gave up.
After nearly a week of consistent practice I could force the howl every time. I would feel the build up of magic, the tightening of my vocal cords, and I knew that I could do it whenever I wanted. But, sadly, it was not something I could do in my human form.
For practice I would have different items stacked in various places. I needed to control the size and force of the howl. That was more difficult than doing the howl on command. I wanted to be able to hit a small target among other objects, to be able to knock over several large objects at a time, and to hit targets farther away.
Obviously, large objects right in front of me were easier to knock down or send flying as it took little to no concentration of the magic. But it was difficult to narrow that stream of power to a small, controlled blast. I had managed it though, and now I could make a sonic blast that was only about as big around as my little finger. And with some effort I could manipulate the blasts to move them around, swirling to the side or up and down. That allowed a lot more precision.
After we perfected my howl, we moved onto trapping, and not the type a survivalist would do. I worked on creating cages with my ice magic and freezing people in place. I also wanted to work on forming cages of lightning, fire, and wind. Different people would require different elements.
I also started practicing with earth as an element. I didn't know if Noah would be happy about sharing his element with me or not, but oh well. Earth was not hard for me to figure out as I loved nature anyway. I spent a good part of my childhood just laying about the grass, trees, and dirt back home. I loved being close to the earth all my life.
With earth magic I was able to shoot clumps of dirt, mud, and chunks of rocks at different targets. There was a lot of taget practice in my training. I successfully formed an earth cage to go with the other elements. And as I got better and better I was able to form earth golems and make them move for me. I even infused those golems with some wind magic and made them move with surprising speed.
Something else that I did that I found super cool, was cause the earth to swallow people. Okay, well, they weren't truly swallowed. But the earth did open at their feet and they dropped into an oozing mud that went halfway up their body before becoming super hard. They were trapped there until I released them.
And as far as my cages went, I had decided on what was the best option. I formed a cage from the earth, it could be as big or as small as I needed. Then, I would wrap that cage in the other elements, even if they broke the stone bars, they would then have to break free of the other barriers.
Oddly enough, with all my elemental magic, and my ease of using earth magic, I was having trouble with plants. That seemed to be unique to Cedar for now. Oh well, I couldn't complain too much, and I could always get the hang of it later.
After we worked for a while on the trapping techniques, I moved on to my different animal forms. I had already guessed that I could turn into any animal in the shifter world, and it turned out I was right. And I had a lot of options to pick from.
I had turned into a bear, bunny, and tiger before. All the animals I had become before stayed looking like my wolf form, white and shining with marks all over. But that wouldn't be a good camouflage would it.
I practiced a lot of different animals every day. I became an antelope, a bear, a bunny, a cheetah, a house cat, a deer, a dog, an eagle, an elk, a fox, a jaguar, a lion, a monkey, a parrot, a tiger, and a zebra. It appeared that I wasn't actually limited to just shifter animals, I could become any animal there was as long as I could picture it.
At first all my animal forms looked just like my wolf form. I was constantly snow white with blue, red, and purple marks. But as the days crept by, and with a lot of intense concentration, I was able to make my animal forms look like just any other from the wild.
I could be a regular white, black, or brown bunny. My fox was the usual rusty and white colors. My bears could be a regular white polar bear, a brown bear, or a black bear. The tigers, lions, cheetahs, jaguar, zebra, and parrots all had the proper colors and markings. My house cat and dog looked like anything you would see in someone's house.
And then there was my wolf form. I could now disguise that as well. I chose a very light silver that looked nearly white but had the darker colors streaking down my back. I felt weird, off somehow, to see my wolf looking so different. But if I was ever bored of the look, I could change it anytime.
This massive amount of work took me more than a few weeks to accomplish. But, I know that it was well worth it to see the looks of joy on everyone's faces as I managed to do something new. I was getting stronger, and I was slowly building up my body's tolerance for my abilities.
I still had witch training here and there as well, I needed to split my time obviously. I had so much I needed to learn, and I didn't want it to take too long before we went back home. Or before I went to hunt down Edmond.
After all my magic training, I worked on physical training, or combat training really. I still practiced a lot with my arrows and my howl. I could never get enough target practice in, apparently.
There was one thing I needed to learn that I had not had much practice in before. Almost none to be exact. I needed to practice fighting in my wolf form.
Back home, after I had my first shift,I had trained with Reece for a few weeks before everything got busy. But the problem was, he had seemed afraid to actually teach me how to fight in wolf form.
I don't know if he wanted to keep me away from fights or he was afraid I would get hurt. But whatever the reason was, I needed to learn this stuff whether he liked it or not. This was my world now, and there was no changing that.
Lucas was brought in to help me with combat combat training, effectively replacing Sebastian and Hideki who had been with me this whole time so far. And with Lucas training me, it meant that Reece and the others would be training with me as well.
I nearly fell over when I saw Reece's face the day we were to begin training together. He was so shocked that he turned as white as a ghost.
"Come on big boy, you're not afraid I'm going to hurt you, are ya?" I taunted him as he looked at me with concern. The look of worry instantly left his face, only to be replaced by one of arrogance and challenge, and of course lots of teasing fun.
"Oh no, baby, I'm worried you won't be able to keep up with me." His heated look was enough to get my juices flowing, but there were too many people around for that. Right now I had to focus on training, later, much later, I could follow that line of thinking.
Once we were all prepared we began our training. The others had been fighting together and training with Lucas for a long time while I was still a newbie. Being so green, as Shane was so happy to call me, I started training directly with Lucas.
Lucas was a great teacher, and he had had a long time to perfect his fighting style and many others. He was an expert in hand to hand combat and different ways to fight with no hands at all. It was going to be an interesting time to say the least.
After I shifted, away from everyone else, we got down to business. Lucas showed me different grapples, one that worked with biting and wrapping your front legs around your opponent. It was hard to get used to at first, all the fighting I had done before had included hands for grabbing someone with.
I admit, biting my opponent made things easier, but it was still different, to say the least. And needless to say I was uneasy with the idea of biting anyone here, I didn't like hurting people, especially good people. But Lucas just shook his head at me.
"You're our queen, it is our job to train you. If we get hurt we will heal, you know that." His voice held a slight edge to it, as if he were trying to anger me into training for real.
"You need to give her a clear target to fight against." I heard Reece's voice as he slowly made his way up to us.
"What do you mean, Sir?" Lucas wondered when he heard Reece's words.
"Like an enemy she wouldn't mind destroying. She needs to imagine she is fighting Edmond, or one of his cronies."
"Like that will be possible. Reece, what the hell are you thinking? If you're this far gone already, I should put you out of your misery Old Yeller."
"You know I'm not past my prime yet, Little Bunny." He smirked at me after I called him on that bullshit. "You need to train to fight Edmond, so you need to fight us like we're Edmond."
"But I don't want to hurt anyone." I felt my face blanche at his declaration. I needed to fight them so I could fight Edmond, that was so not going to happen.
"Do you want to hurt Edmond?" He asked me. "Or do you plan to let him get away?"
"What the fuck do you think?" I could feel my anger rising, the growl growing in my chest as he accused me of that level of treachery. "I would sooner kill him than let his ass get away with what he's done. In fact, that's exactly what I plan to do to him."
"Good, now use that anger and fight me."
He didn't shift into his wolf form, he stayed in his human shape, but I didn't care. Edmond would be in that type of body too, so I needed to know how to use a wolf's skill against a man shaped opponent. He's only man shaped because that cowardly, child stealing, family destroying piece of shit, Edmond, was nothing like a man.
I leapt at Reece, my teeth bared and claws aimed at his chest. He's the one that asked for this, and he was going to be the one to deal with the consequences later.
I hit him with full force, square in his chest. The momentum of my leap toppled him over and we fell to the ground in a rolling heap. One flipping over the other, we rolled a few times until he twisted his body and pinned me to the ground and blocked the light of the sun with his broad shoulders.
He hovered over me, acting as the moon in a solar eclipse, breathing heavily and grinning darkly.
"This is why I want you away from the fighting." His voice, his words, pissed me off. He wanted to lock me in a bubble for the rest of my life, I'll be damned if I let him do that.
"Fuck off, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore and you can't tell me what to do anymore either. This is my time to shine."
I brought my back legs up under him, planting them right about where his belly button was, then I kicked with all the force I could muster. Even in human form he outclassed me with sheer size. I barely managed to move him to the side when I pushed him.
"See what I mean, Little Bunny, you can't take me on." He was looking at me with dark eyes, half desire and half anger. He wasn't angry at me, but for me.
"You're stronger and faster than almost any man alive, possibly every man alive. You've been gifted with strength by the Goddess, not once but twice." I snarled at him. "If I beat you, or even come close to it, you need to admit how strong I am."
"Fine, if you even get close to beating me in a fight, I will never say anything about you joining a fight again." His voice held a note of mischief. He thought he had this fight in the bag with his size, strength, and training. Yeah, well, I've got my own strengths too and he can't match those.
"You better not go back on your words, Fido, cause I hate liars." I glared at him with defiance practically oozing out of my eyes.
I knew I wasn't going to beat Reece in a fair wolf fight. But I wasn't just a wolf now was I? I had many tricks up my sleeve, and the point of me learning so much is so I could put it all to good use.
I Quickly shifted into his favorite thing to think of me as. One minute he held himself propped above my wolf form, pressing my front legs to the ground. The next, I was twisting to the side and rolling out from under him while he looked confused at the empty space where my head was just a few moments ago.
As soon as I had rolled and hopped out from under his large, looming presence, I shifted again. I spun on the spot as a rabbit for just a second and the next I was standing above him on my hind legs, looking down at him from a higher place than I had thought I'd ever be while standing on my own two legs. This time I took the form of a bear. These front legs would be larger and more powerful when holding a prey in place.
I didn't waste any time though, I just lunged forward and wrapped my front legs around his upper body, pinning his arms to his chest. I was slightly stronger in this form, but not strong enough it seemed. No sooner had I pinned his arms to his sides did he start to force them back out. With his muscles flexing and his shirt ripping under the strain to the fabric, he pushed my massive, claw tipped paws away from him and pushed me backwards.
I stumbled for just a moment as he rose to his feet and started toward me. I didn't waste a second of my time though, I knew he was coming. I shifted again, this time to the form of an eagle, soaring into the air. I flew higher and higher, ten feet, twenty, thirty, finally I was at least three hundred feet off the ground. Thanks to the excellent vision of eagles, I could still see everyone on the ground clear as day.
I hovered for just a moment as I planned my next move. Once I had my mind made up I pointed my beak down and pressed my wings back, driving straight toward my husband's face. I knew he would move at the last second, out of the way of the leathally sharp beak, while still trying to catch me out of the air.
Once I was close enough for him to step to the side, just like I predicted he would, I shifted. He thought I was going to attack as an eagle, but he didn't expect the three hundred pound tiger that landed with deadly accuracy right against his chest.
Reece was knocked off his feet instantaneously, slamming onto the ground with the wind being forcefully pushed from his lungs. I heard his head slam against the ground and the crack of more than one of his ribs from the impact, but I knew he would heal and I had to prove myself here.
With my face just inches from his I snarled at him, baring my wickedly sharp, three inch long, snowy white teeth. It would have taken me no time at all to rip his throat out if he were a real enemy. It would have been done in an instant while he was trying to catch his breath. I had won this round and he had to admit that.
"Fine, I yield. You would have killed me just now if I was Edmond."
"Not to mention, he wouldn't have your advantages." I reminded him.
"The strength and speed?" He wondered.
"Knowing what I can do." I told him with a smile in my voice. "But I'm glad you admitted defeat. Save some face in front of your friends sweetheart." I joked with him before licking the side of his face with a quick flash of my large, pink tongue.
That was the end of me holding back. I started fighting with them for real, and I quickly learned everything Lucas had to offer. I would add it to everything else to make a style that was all my own.
~~Trinity~~After my eventful day, and night, training my witch side and visiting the Gods in my bed, followed by a much needed day of rest, I was back to training my Goddess given wolf abilities. I needed to get a hand on it and learn how to summon a specific ability at will.Over the course of several days I practiced my howl. The one that would push things back like I had sent a sonic wave blast or at least a big gust of wind. At first, it was difficult to perform, I would howl and nothing would happen. But I never gave up.After nearly a week of consistent practice I could force the howl every time. I would feel the build up of magic, the tightening of my vocal cords, and I knew that I could do it whenever I wanted. But, sadly, it was not something I could do in my human form.For practice I would have different items stacked in various places. I needed to control the size and force of the howl. That was more difficult than doing the howl on command. I wanted to be able to hit a small target among other objects, to be able to knock over several large objects at a time, and to hit targets farther away.Obviously, large objects right in front of me were easier to knock down or send flying as it took little to no concentration of the magic. But it was difficult to narrow that stream of power to a small, controlled blast. I had managed it though, and now I could make a sonic blast that was only about as big around as my little finger. And with some effort I could manipulate the blasts to move them around, swirling to the side or up and down. That allowed a lot more precision.After we perfected my howl, we moved onto trapping, and not the type a survivalist would do. I worked on creating cages with my ice magic and freezing people in place. I also wanted to work on forming cages of lightning, fire, and wind. Different people would require different elements.I also started practicing with earth as an element. I didn't know if Noah would be happy about sharing his element with me or not, but oh well. Earth was not hard for me to figure out as I loved nature anyway. I spent a good part of my childhood just laying about the grass, trees, and dirt back home. I loved being close to the earth all my life.With earth magic I was able to shoot clumps of dirt, mud, and chunks of rocks at different targets. There was a lot of taget practice in my training. I successfully formed an earth cage to go with the other elements. And as I got better and better I was able to form earth golems and make them move for me. I even infused those golems with some wind magic and made them move with surprising speed.Something else that I did that I found super cool, was cause the earth to swallow people. Okay, well, they weren't truly swallowed. But the earth did open at their feet and they dropped into an oozing mud that went halfway up their body before becoming super hard. They were trapped there until I released them.And as far as my cages went, I had decided on what was the best option. I formed a cage from the earth, it could be as big or as small as I needed. Then, I would wrap that cage in the other elements, even if they broke the stone bars, they would then have to break free of the other barriers.Oddly enough, with all my elemental magic, and my ease of using earth magic, I was having trouble with plants. That seemed to be unique to Cedar for now. Oh well, I couldn't complain too much, and I could always get the hang of it later.After we worked for a while on the trapping techniques, I moved on to my different animal forms. I had already guessed that I could turn into any animal in the shifter world, and it turned out I was right. And I had a lot of options to pick from.I had turned into a bear, bunny, and tiger before. All the animals I had become before stayed looking like my wolf form, white and shining with marks all over. But that wouldn't be a good camouflage would it.I practiced a lot of different animals every day. I became an antelope, a bear, a bunny, a cheetah, a house cat, a deer, a dog, an eagle, an elk, a fox, a jaguar, a lion, a monkey, a parrot, a tiger, and a zebra. It appeared that I wasn't actually limited to just shifter animals, I could become any animal there was as long as I could picture it.At first all my animal forms looked just like my wolf form. I was constantly snow white with blue, red, and purple marks. But as the days crept by, and with a lot of intense concentration, I was able to make my animal forms look like just any other from the wild.I could be a regular white, black, or brown bunny. My fox was the usual rusty and white colors. My bears could be a regular white polar bear, a brown bear, or a black bear. The tigers, lions, cheetahs, jaguar, zebra, and parrots all had the proper colors and markings. My house cat and dog looked like anything you would see in someone's house.And then there was my wolf form. I could now disguise that as well. I chose a very light silver that looked nearly white but had the darker colors streaking down my back. I felt weird, off somehow, to see my wolf looking so different. But if I was ever bored of the look, I could change it anytime.This massive amount of work took me more than a few weeks to accomplish. But, I know that it was well worth it to see the looks of joy on everyone's faces as I managed to do something new. I was getting stronger, and I was slowly building up my body's tolerance for my abilities.I still had witch training here and there as well, I needed to split my time obviously. I had so much I needed to learn, and I didn't want it to take too long before we went back home. Or before I went to hunt down Edmond.After all my magic training, I worked on physical training, or combat training really. I still practiced a lot with my arrows and my howl. I could never get enough target practice in, apparently.There was one thing I needed to learn that I had not had much practice in before. Almost none to be exact. I needed to practice fighting in my wolf form.Back home, after I had my first shift,I had trained with Reece for a few weeks before everything got busy. But the problem was, he had seemed afraid to actually teach me how to fight in wolf form.I don't know if he wanted to keep me away from fights or he was afraid I would get hurt. But whatever the reason was, I needed to learn this stuff whether he liked it or not. This was my world now, and there was no changing that.Lucas was brought in to help me with combat combat training, effectively replacing Sebastian and Hideki who had been with me this whole time so far. And with Lucas training me, it meant that Reece and the others would be training with me as well.I nearly fell over when I saw Reece's face the day we were to begin training together. He was so shocked that he turned as white as a ghost."Come on big boy, you're not afraid I'm going to hurt you, are ya?" I taunted him as he looked at me with concern. The look of worry instantly left his face, only to be replaced by one of arrogance and challenge, and of course lots of teasing fun."Oh no, baby, I'm worried you won't be able to keep up with me." His heated look was enough to get my juices flowing, but there were too many people around for that. Right now I had to focus on training, later, much later, I could follow that line of thinking.Once we were all prepared we began our training. The others had been fighting together and training with Lucas for a long time while I was still a newbie. Being so green, as Shane was so happy to call me, I started training directly with Lucas.Lucas was a great teacher, and he had had a long time to perfect his fighting style and many others. He was an expert in hand to hand combat and different ways to fight with no hands at all. It was going to be an interesting time to say the least.After I shifted, away from everyone else, we got down to business. Lucas showed me different grapples, one that worked with biting and wrapping your front legs around your opponent. It was hard to get used to at first, all the fighting I had done before had included hands for grabbing someone with.I admit, biting my opponent made things easier, but it was still different, to say the least. And needless to say I was uneasy with the idea of biting anyone here, I didn't like hurting people, especially good people. But Lucas just shook his head at me."You're our queen, it is our job to train you. If we get hurt we will heal, you know that." His voice held a slight edge to it, as if he were trying to anger me into training for real."You need to give her a clear target to fight against." I heard Reece's voice as he slowly made his way up to us."What do you mean, Sir?" Lucas wondered when he heard Reece's words."Like an enemy she wouldn't mind destroying. She needs to imagine she is fighting Edmond, or one of his cronies.""Like that will be possible. Reece, what the hell are you thinking? If you're this far gone already, I should put you out of your misery Old Yeller.""You know I'm not past my prime yet, Little Bunny." He smirked at me after I called him on that bullshit. "You need to train to fight Edmond, so you need to fight us like we're Edmond.""But I don't want to hurt anyone." I felt my face blanche at his declaration. I needed to fight them so I could fight Edmond, that was so not going to happen."Do you want to hurt Edmond?" He asked me. "Or do you plan to let him get away?""What the fuck do you think?" I could feel my anger rising, the growl growing in my chest as he accused me of that level of treachery. "I would sooner kill him than let his ass get away with what he's done. In fact, that's exactly what I plan to do to him.""Good, now use that anger and fight me."He didn't shift into his wolf form, he stayed in his human shape, but I didn't care. Edmond would be in that type of body too, so I needed to know how to use a wolf's skill against a man shaped opponent. He's only man shaped because that cowardly, child stealing, family destroying piece of shit, Edmond, was nothing like a man.I leapt at Reece, my teeth bared and claws aimed at his chest. He's the one that asked for this, and he was going to be the one to deal with the consequences later.I hit him with full force, square in his chest. The momentum of my leap toppled him over and we fell to the ground in a rolling heap. One flipping over the other, we rolled a few times until he twisted his body and pinned me to the ground and blocked the light of the sun with his broad shoulders.He hovered over me, acting as the moon in a solar eclipse, breathing heavily and grinning darkly."This is why I want you away from the fighting." His voice, his words, pissed me off. He wanted to lock me in a bubble for the rest of my life, I'll be damned if I let him do that."Fuck off, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore and you can't tell me what to do anymore either. This is my time to shine."I brought my back legs up under him, planting them right about where his belly button was, then I kicked with all the force I could muster. Even in human form he outclassed me with sheer size. I barely managed to move him to the side when I pushed him."See what I mean, Little Bunny, you can't take me on." He was looking at me with dark eyes, half desire and half anger. He wasn't angry at me, but for me."You're stronger and faster than almost any man alive, possibly every man alive. You've been gifted with strength by the Goddess, not once but twice." I snarled at him. "If I beat you, or even come close to it, you need to admit how strong I am.""Fine, if you even get close to beating me in a fight, I will never say anything about you joining a fight again." His voice held a note of mischief. He thought he had this fight in the bag with his size, strength, and training. Yeah, well, I've got my own strengths too and he can't match those."You better not go back on your words, Fido, cause I hate liars." I glared at him with defiance practically oozing out of my eyes.I knew I wasn't going to beat Reece in a fair wolf fight. But I wasn't just a wolf now was I? I had many tricks up my sleeve, and the point of me learning so much is so I could put it all to good use.I Quickly shifted into his favorite thing to think of me as. One minute he held himself propped above my wolf form, pressing my front legs to the ground. The next, I was twisting to the side and rolling out from under him while he looked confused at the empty space where my head was just a few moments ago.As soon as I had rolled and hopped out from under his large, looming presence, I shifted again. I spun on the spot as a rabbit for just a second and the next I was standing above him on my hind legs, looking down at him from a higher place than I had thought I'd ever be while standing on my own two legs. This time I took the form of a bear. These front legs would be larger and more powerful when holding a prey in place.I didn't waste any time though, I just lunged forward and wrapped my front legs around his upper body, pinning his arms to his chest. I was slightly stronger in this form, but not strong enough it seemed. No sooner had I pinned his arms to his sides did he start to force them back out. With his muscles flexing and his shirt ripping under the strain to the fabric, he pushed my massive, claw tipped paws away from him and pushed me backwards.I stumbled for just a moment as he rose to his feet and started toward me. I didn't waste a second of my time though, I knew he was coming. I shifted again, this time to the form of an eagle, soaring into the air. I flew higher and higher, ten feet, twenty, thirty, finally I was at least three hundred feet off the ground. Thanks to the excellent vision of eagles, I could still see everyone on the ground clear as day.I hovered for just a moment as I planned my next move. Once I had my mind made up I pointed my beak down and pressed my wings back, driving straight toward my husband's face. I knew he would move at the last second, out of the way of the leathally sharp beak, while still trying to catch me out of the air.Once I was close enough for him to step to the side, just like I predicted he would, I shifted. He thought I was going to attack as an eagle, but he didn't expect the three hundred pound tiger that landed with deadly accuracy right against his chest.Reece was knocked off his feet instantaneously, slamming onto the ground with the wind being forcefully pushed from his lungs. I heard his head slam against the ground and the crack of more than one of his ribs from the impact, but I knew he would heal and I had to prove myself here.With my face just inches from his I snarled at him, baring my wickedly sharp, three inch long, snowy white teeth. It would have taken me no time at all to rip his throat out if he were a real enemy. It would have been done in an instant while he was trying to catch his breath. I had won this round and he had to admit that."Fine, I yield. You would have killed me just now if I was Edmond.""Not to mention, he wouldn't have your advantages." I reminded him."The strength and speed?" He wondered."Knowing what I can do." I told him with a smile in my voice. "But I'm glad you admitted defeat. Save some face in front of your friends sweetheart." I joked with him before licking the side of his face with a quick flash of my large, pink tongue.That was the end of me holding back. I started fighting with them for real, and I quickly learned everything Lucas had to offer. I would add it to everything else to make a style that was all my own.
