Truths and Training

I must’ve dozed off while I was thinking.

As I open my eyes, the form of Charlotte sitting in a chair is the first thing I see. Her back is to me. She’s messing with a flat box. I can see a soft white light flickering off of it.

I wait a moment before announcing my awakening. Mathis’ footsteps are softly padding away. It almost sounds like he’s running. I sat up straight. What is he running for?

Charlotte turned to look at me.

“Up already Alpha?” She asks. The politeness in her voice is back. It’s the same voice she used when we first met. Not the angry and distant tone she used last night.

“Yea. What’s up with Mathis? It sounds like he’s running laps.”

His footsteps hadn’t gotten any closer or farther. Just kept up a steady pat pat pat rhythm.

“He’s exercising. Something we should probably all do a little of. I’ve been working to create a stronger barrier around us. A block on anyone trying to search for our personal energy signals.”

“Oh. That’s amazing. How do you do that?”

“With the power of giving and healing life, comes the same power to take and block out life.” She stood, and reached out a hand. The thin box she had been holding started to glow again.

Then the light was surrounded by a barrier that seemed to make it fold in on itself.

I could still see the light, but it looked like it was being reflected by a dome around it. It shone brighter and brighter, until it was opaque.

Then it was simply gone. The light just vanished without warning.

“Wow!” I was amazed and couldn’t hold back the excitement I felt at seeing her power in action. “So that’s what your doing for us constantly?”

“Sort of. But instead of bending light, I’m bending the life force. I simply rebound the energy back to its original source. It’s very effective at keeping anyone outside of its boundary from sensing the energy I’m containing. And it also helps to restore and bolster the energy available inside the barrier as a whole.”

“As a whole? Does that mean the energy I used against J was actually your energy?”

“Not exactly. It’s the recycled and condensed energy from everything inside my powers barrier. The natural energy. The energy that naturally leaks off of a person, or their personal energy. And any unnatural energy that’s being produced as well.”

She set the black box down on the table next to her.

“Can you tell me what all of this energy is? I’ve never heard of anything like it before.” I was truly curious now. And maybe I was starting to believe her story from last night.

“Of course, Alpha Fenrir.” She said with a smile. “It would take some time to explain it all, but a rough basics should help you start to understand more.”

She sat back down in her chair. I moved over towards her and found my own chair next to her. The table with the black box on it was in between us.

“To start with, energy is the essential building block of everything. From the solid matter that we’re sitting on. To the soft fur that grows on your arms and legs when you shift. All of it is a natural energy expenditure.”

I looked down at my currently hairless arms. The blue fur that exploded from them when I shifted, I always had thought of it as just a consequence of my shifting. I guess it made sense that I had to use energy to make the shift happen.

“Even the air you breath, and the gases you can’t, are natural energies. The smallest atoms wouldn’t survive without this energy to sustain themselves. Just like how even the loneliest wolf can’t sustain itself, without the will and energy to hunt and carry on.”

A physics lesson was the last thing I had expected. I never was very good in school, so the explanation was way over my head. But the general idea was easy enough.

Energy was needed to do things. Everyone and everything had energy.

I had the sudden urge to try something. If I could expend energy to shift fully, could I use less energy and only shift certain parts of myself?

I raised both my hands in front of me.

“Can you tell me if it’s possible to only shift certain parts of my body at a time?”

“It’s certainly possible. Many of the shifters in J’s pack spend their time partially shifted. Some used it to look as human as possible to blend into crowds and spy.”

I tried to focus on shifting just my right arm. While keeping my left arm hairless and clawless.

Nothing was happening. Why? I had done it so many times now.

“It’s more difficult to channel energy through such small paths. When you fully shift, often under strong emotions, your just blowing off the energy in one big push of power. To let it out in only a fine tuned way, such as a single arm, takes an extreme amount of control.” Charlotte explained.

I felt like a child getting lectured. But I guess she had to be right. Cause I couldn’t get the shift to happen.

“How do I learn control?”

She simply pointed towards the sounds of Mathis’ workout routine. The clicks of his feet on the floor, the thumps of fists landing blows.

His breathing was still very subtle and slow, despite having been working out since before I had woken up.

“Training the body, as well as the mind, is the only way to learn.” Charlotte stood and motioned for me to follow her.

We entered the room Mathis was in, and I stopped to stare immediately. He was boxing a shadow. A literal shadow that was a perfect mirror of Mathis.

Punches were thrown, and they were dodged. Kicks were caught or deflected away. As large as Mathis was, the shadow stood even with him. Ducking and aiming blows back.

The clacking was the claws Mathis had extended out to help his lower legs hold grip on the floor. Without them it was easy to see how he might slip and fall away. They were moving so fast that before one foot even landed on the ground, the other was already leaving it.

A few times he simply twirled around in mid air for a moment, both legs kicking out at the shadow before he swung a heavy blow with his right fist.

And that was the thumping I had been hearing. The two kicks landing solidly on the shadows body, and a downward hammer strike. I thought he would’ve destroyed the shadow with how hard he hit it.

But it just flattened out where the fist passed through it. And when Mathis pulled away, the shadow healed back to normal. They went back and forth as we watched. The pace never slowing.

The small circle they were moving in as they fought, was getting scratched up. I could see the energy swelling around them. I took a step closer, wanting to see more of the fighting techniques Mathis used.

I had never watched someone train like this before. Sure I’d seen movies where people fought, but that was all choreographed. Most of it was faked to look good.

This however, was a brutal art.

He moved in a rhythm that was neither hurried or slow. His fists making contact with the shadow, then pulling back in time to block. His feet kept the shadow in check, he moved around it in a circle. Aiming kicks to the shadows sides and legs to keep it from moving away.

The shadow was blocking some strikes, but taking most of them on its body. It seemed to dissolve and fade for a short time after it got hit. But then it would repair itself and continue fighting back.

On and on it went. Charlotte and I stood there watching, until Mathis suddenly stopped. He jumped away from the shadow, and exhaled a very long breath. The shadow dissipated and was gone.

Mathis walked over to the cot he slept on and sat down on it. His eyes were closed and I could see his chest heaving. The short breaths he was panting out showed his exhaustion.

“That was amazing.” I said, breaking the new silence in the room.

“That’s years of practice.” Mathis said in return. His voice was steady despite his ragged breath.

“You see it as amazing, because your style of fighting, is nothing more than a bar room brawler level.” Charlotte’s grin was so wide her teeth were showing. The sharp canines poked over her bottom lip. “I mean, you may have strength, but you tend to just blast around and smash everything in sight.” She gave a small cough as she continued. “But, if you wanna learn to actually fight, ask Mathis if he’d be willing to show you.”

Mathis looked up at Charlotte with a resentful face. I looked between them, there was something being said between them, I could tell by the way their faces changed slightly.

I know Charlotte was only teasing, I hadn’t ever had any formal training before. Just instinct that kicked in when I finally decided to fight back.

After J, had drugged me, that had more or less been the wolf side of me that knew survival brawling. All of it coming out on an adrenaline high.

“Mathis, would you please? If J, or my father….”

I trailed off. Looking away from him.

“Of course, Alpha.”

Hours passed, and my body was now hurting and soaked with sweat. Mathis had been running me through a basic routine. The simple punches and kicks meant to introduce my body into correct fighting postures.

More like the most painful way to bend your body.

My hips burned, my legs were throbbing, the muscles in my chest and back felt like I had stretched them out so far that they’d never go back.

My knuckles had swollen up. Luckily the shadow I was punching didn’t cut into the skin. But the density of the shadow itself made the impacts rattle my bones.

The first time I hit it, I had felt a numbing jolt go all the way up to my elbow. After I had jumped back and yelped, Charlotte had burst out laughing. Mathis just rubbed his head and told me to get up and try again.

After hitting it a few times, I got a feel for how hard I could hit it and not break my hand, but still satisfy Mathis’ idea of getting a solid hit in.

Charlotte had praised me at some points, and outright scolded me at others. She saw flaws in my movements and explained how to correct them. Mathis would interject his thoughts only after his shadow knocked me down.

His thoughts always made me feel like he was analyzing my fighting technique from the shadows perspective. Like he was the one I was fighting.

I fell back, sitting down hard. I was sweating profusely. I had taken off the heavy sweater and was wearing a simple black tank top. Even it’s thinness was starting to make me feel claustrophobic inside it.

My arms were numb, and my legs could’ve fallen off and I don’t think I would have have noticed. And the part that was still nagging at the front of my mind, I couldn’t shift.

Not once had I been able to shift into my wolf form. I couldn’t even sense the energies I had just grown used to seeing. 

Frustrated was an understatement to how I felt. I couldn’t focus anymore. And that last hit I took made it show.

“Stop! Thats enough for now, I’m exhausted.” I yelled out.

The shadow disappeared, and Mathis slouched back down on his cot. Charlotte walked over to me and stood there looking down on me.

“You don’t need to be upset. This is just training.” She admonished. She waited till I looked up at her. When our eyes meet, her glowing amber irises were extremely bright. Her whole face was lit by their glow.

“Sorry. I’m just tired and lost my temper.”

I knew I needed to apologize. I had already said I wasn’t going to be like J. I can’t start barking orders based on emotion.

“I know your frustration, but your simply inexperienced. We’ll end it here today for physical training. And we’ll do the same, for three hours, each day from now on. And when you can take that much, we’ll step it up again.” She was smiling at me now.

“Trust me. This is still the easiest of what you’ll learn.” With a wink, she offered me a hand to help me back up.

I took it, and letting her pull me up, I was standing again.

“Somethings bugging me though. Why can’t I shift?”

Charlotte looked at me with a serious tone.

“Because your body has finally purged out all of the drug that J forced into you.” She said solemnly.

Apparently that drug was what let me shift. I guess that makes sense. I had never been able to shift before.

“So I won’t be able to shift anymore?”

That would suck pretty hard. But if I needed to be hooked on a drug to do it, then I’d have to pass.

“Not exactly. The drug induces it. But your body is capable of the shift on its own. You just need to right guidance.”

“So why can’t I do it now? I can’t even sense the energies around me anymore.”

“You can’t shift because I’m blocking your energy. I thought I had already explained how I did that. I can’t have someone noticing a sudden explosion of energy.” She was lecturing me like a school teacher to a student who couldn’t pay attention very well.

So I guess I had some what known that, but I didn’t think it would be to such an extent.

She was effectively blocking out my energy from everyone and everything around us. I couldn’t even sense energy coming in due to the strength of the barrier.

And apparently that also caused my shifting skill  to be nullified.

…because shifting requires a blast of energy….

Isn’t that what Charlotte had told me?

“Oh… I think I get it.”

“I think a good review of the basics of energy would do you good. Especially since you have such a raw connection to it.”

“So, what, your gonna be my professor now?”

She smacked me, not hard, but with enough force to let me know she thought that last comment was rude.

I just laughed.

We spent the next few hours discussing what I at first had called magic. Only to be scolded and corrected each and every time.

“It’s a natural energy found in all beings. Not hocus pocus.” Charlotte would bark out.

After I had started spacing out and gotten a few more smacks on the head, I asked about going out for food.

“And I suppose you want to go back to that bar, and flirt with the Trimodian?” Charlotte sneered.

Her eyes were focused sharply at me. I felt attacked, I wasn’t sure what Trimodians were, but she was accusing me pretty harshly.

“The what?” Was all I could think to say.

“That bar girl. You know, the one you were cuddling up to at dinner last night.”

Oh, right. That girl didn’t even register in my mind. I had honestly forgotten about much of last night already.

I had too many other things I was thinking about anyway.

I simply turned away from Charlotte. She saw way too much and was really good at perceiving things. She must’ve seen something about me last night that even I didn’t know.

“Fine. I guess it’s not really my call on whom you want to see and spend time with. So long as it doesn’t endanger us, or create issues in which I’ll have to bail you out of.” Charlotte smoothly said as she stood and began walking towards the door.

I snapped my head back around to her.

Wow, that was, odd. Her tone wasn’t exactly friendly, but I couldn’t read her face. What was she doing? I thought she would railroad me into changing my mind about going out again. At the very least go some place different.

“Your sure?” I asked timidly. Not sure if the water I was leaping into would be ice cold, or warm.

“Yea. You are Alpha. And I see no harm in going back to the bar. Maybe your new girlfriend will be able to give us some information.”

“Not my girlfriend!” I cut in.

“I mean, we haven’t been on this side of the Dromega star system in a very long time.” She continued without listening to my protest.

She seemed to be considering something, but pointedly ignored my attempt at getting her to say what  

My growls of protest went unanswered as Charlotte walked out the door. I followed behind, Mathis closing and locking the door behind us.

The whole way down the street to the bar, I fumed. I couldn’t figure out why Charlotte thought I was into that girl. I hadn’t even realized I had grabbed hold of her last night until Charlotte pointed it out.

And she wouldn’t listen to me when I told her that I wasn’t interested in her. We had barely walked through the entrance way, when the yellow skinned waitress made a shrieking noise, waved us down, and demanded we get a table with her.

It was like she was waiting for us to walk through the door. She had been standing only a few feet away at the closest table to the door.

I couldn’t decide if I was just remembering wrong, or if she had changed something about herself, but something seemed…..off.

Didn’t she have black accents running around like tattoos on her skin last night? Why now are they blue? And not just any blue, but a perfect shade of blue to match my hair.

Which was out for everyone to see. In my frustration, I had forgotten to put my hood up. Shit, my face, my ears, everyone’s gonna see me.

“Your so cute when your face gets red.” The bubbly voice, then the giggling.

And before I had even thought to stop her, both arms had wrapped tightly around me. The girls slender yellow arms, now marked with the same blue as my hair, pulled me against her.

We were about the same size, but she has a larger and much softer chest, and I felt awkward as I was being crushed against it with my arms pinned, no where to go.

“I’m so glad you came back! I’ve been chatting up some of my guild mates while I waited for you all to get here. Come on, there’s a booth in the back we can take. The manager lets staff use it for breaks but I asked everyone here tonight and their fine letting us use it for awhile.” The girl rambled on.

While she was talking, I turned to look back at Charlotte, who had a look of serious disappointment on her face.

Mathis was standing sideways in the door, looking pointedly out of it. Instead of inward at us.

Fuck. What have I done?