FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

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CHAPTER 25

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Despite waking Laguna up during the night with one of my nightmares, or more accurately when I woke up screaming, he seemed well rested and constantly smiling. Before going to Kassius's lessons, Laguna and I had decided to stay in bed a while longer for some additional 'fun'. We both knew that we'd be late, and since we were already late we decided it would be a good idea to clean up a little. No need to go there smelling like sex after all.

By the time Laguna and I had bathed, given each other mutual blow jobs, dried off, and had a bite to eat, time was really beginning to get on. I was relieved that at least we weren't late for bending lessons. The few members of the combat training that weren't part of Kassius's bending lessons were just departing.

One of those dragons were Kassandra. She glanced at me as she passed, her brow visibly furrowed in annoyance. I guess she was still a little bitter about the result of our last fight, which probably meant she was going to want to fight me again sometime in the future, and that was not a fight I was looking forward to.

We made our way down into the pit and was welcomed by a couple of familiar muzzles, Roxis and Tristen. They gave us some knowing looks as we approached and I gave each of them a paw shake before Kassius noticed our arrival.

"Well, well, well... it was nice of you two to join us." Kassius smirked.

At that point everyone turned to look at us, including Baroc who looked less than happy to see me. I guess he was still holding onto that alpha male thing, I always thought that it was a pack mentality thing, but I guess it was just a male thing after all.

"So Xavier tells me that you've come a long way. Why don't you show us what you can do?"

"Sure." I grinned and made my way to the nearest brazier, stopping a few yards away from it.

I glanced around the room, noticing that nearly everyone was keeping a very safe distance away from me, not that I could blame them considering the last time I had tried to do this very thing in front of them. But things were going to be different this time.

I shut my eyes and focused, first drawing on my nen. The brazier sat just outside my bubble, I made a point of making sure my bubble didn't interact with the brazier just in case. I reached out with my paw and willed my nen towards the fire, an invisible, phantom like limb moved towards the fire. The limb was invisible but I could see it in my mind, it was like a wisp of smoke snaking through the air. It reached into the brazier and the fire began to burn a little hotter.

I heard a few of the spectators gasp, nervous that I could cause an out of control inferno like last time, but this time I was in control. I willed my nen to wrap itself round a portion of the fire, careful not to choke it but to hold and feed it at the same time. I took a moment to compose myself and made sure I was doing it right before pulling a ball of flame out of the brazier and pulled it close so I could hold it between my paws.

My nen acted like a shield from the heat, I could barely feel any heat as I held my paws a few of inches on either side of the fire. I turned round and showed Kassius and the others, Kassius gave me a nod and a smile of approval.

"Very good, much better than last time." Kassius praised. "So lets see what else you can do."

"Like what?"

"Lets try something a little advanced, but I think you can probably do it." His own nen shot into the brazier and pulled out a ball of fire like I had done but did it with such ease he may as well have been breathing. A reminder that I had a long way to go before I was considered a capable fire bender. "From this point you have some options, use the fire as a weapon or use it as a shield."

"Okay." I said, trying to focus on what he was saying while maintaining the ball of fire in my paws.

"But the worst thing to happen to a fire bender is to be suddenly cut off from a fire source in the midst of battle. So we must learn to not only use fire effectively, we need to learn how to make it last."

"You're talking about fire spirits." Roxis chirped.

"Yes, as we were practising yesterday." Kassius smiled and with a gesture pushed the fire ball away so it floated a distance away from him but was still connected to him by a strand of nen. "If a fire bender can maintain a fire spirit he can keep fire in reserve so that even if he is cut off from a source of fire he can still defend himself."

"So if you were able to maintain a lot of fire spirits.... you wouldn't need a source of fire?" I asked.

"True, but maintaining enough fire spirits for an entire fight can be difficult, if you lose your focus during the fight you can lose most if not all of the fire spirits you were holding in reserve. So what if you only needed one?"

"How?"

"Well all benders nen is different, allowing the user to master different skills more easily than others, one such skill is fire feeding." Kassisus explained. "Using your nen to not only maintain a fire spirit but to feed it..."

"To make it grow stronger."

"Yes, and essentially." I felt a shift in Kassius's nen and with a quick motion of his paw his fire spirit surged with life and then split into two. "You have you're own portable source of fire."

"So everyone start to practise this!" Kassius ordered and immediately everyone moved to obey.

I stared at the fire in my paws and imagined trying to pull it apart. In a few moments it did just that, but was simply two smaller portions of fire while Kassius had split his into two the same size of the original.

I stared at the two fire balls and pushed a bit more nen into them, they simply snuffed out. I started again, drawing a ball of fire from the brazier, but this time I focused on feeding the fire before ripping it apart. The fire ball burned hotter and grew slightly in size when I attempted to pull it apart. This time I pulled apart the fire and they were much larger in size, almost the same size as the original.

Encouraged by the success I attempted to do it again on one of the two fire balls before me, and once again it worked, and this time the two fire balls were the same size as the other half of the original. I continued to do this, excited and entranced by the sight of my success.

"Now that is quite impressive." Kassius's voice rumbled behind me.

He pulled me from my own little world with a start, thankfully I managed to maintain my focus so that I didn't lose the numerous fire spirits I had created. I looked round and saw several other dragons watching with slightly awed expressions. I had managed to create about ten fire spirits.

"Xavier was right, you are a fast learner." He smirked. "Most adept benders would struggle to maintain half-a-dozen fire spirits at the best of times."

"So what can I do with these fire spirits?" I asked.

"Many things, but generally they are used to hurl fireballs." He explained matter-of-factly, blunt in comparison to Xavier's explanations where he would ramble on with some explanation or other when explaining something to me.

"So how do I hurl a fire ball?"

"Well..." He looked round at the rest of the class, most of which had stopped to watch. "Keep practising!" He growled, most returning to the practise the exercise immediately, the rest following suit a moment or two later. "I suppose since you seemingly have natural talent for this exercise, I could let you do some target practise."

He lead me a short distance, away from the main group, I was a little worried that some of the class might think I was getting special treatment but in the end I decided that this was for my benefit so I shouldn't worry about things like that. I'd deal with the situation if it turned up. There were several training dummies set up, at the far end of the pit, more than likely left over from Kassius's previous class.

"Now summon a few fire spirits and trying hitting one of the dummies."

I complied, taking a few moments to draw on my nen again and then draw from the nearby brazier. Once I had a half dozen fire spirits I took one between my paws and threw it at the middle dummy.

The shot fell short, barely making it half way, burning up into nothing. I tried again, this time focusing on maintaining my link to the fire as it travelled, but that ended in failure as well, I couldn't maintain my connection once it left my nen bubble for more that a couple of seconds. It seemed impractical to try and expand my bubble since most other benders never had one.

I looked to Kassius who seemed somewhat distracted, no not distracted, he was fascinated but not what I was doing. It looked like he was staring into empty space but it suddenly dawned on me that he might be sensing my nen bubble. I had never seen any other bender, not even during the tournament, use a nen bubble like mine. And unlike the rest of the dragons here Kassius was a Master bender, which meant he could sense the nen of others more sharply than most.

Xavier had explained that the stronger an individuals nen was, the more sensitive they were to the sensing the nen of others. To test my theory I stopped drawing on my nen and the bubble withdrew back within me and snapped Kassius out of whatever daze he was in. He gave me a knowing smirk.

"You really are quite something."

"I'd not say that, I can't even make a fire ball travel ten yards."

"Well it does take practise."

"Could you show me?"

"I guess it couldn't hurt."

He stepped forward and I paid close attention to everything he did. He reached into the brazier with his nen, pulling a single fire spirit from it and then divided it into two. He took one into his right paw and surrounded it in his nen. No, he was feeding it while trapping it. I don't know why he did that but I didn't get a long to figure it out before he thrust his paw forward towards the dummy and sent the fireball hurtling towards it, striking it dead on with enough force to make it rock back and forth slightly.

He then did the same with the other fire ball, this time I noticed that he wasn't just feeding the fire, he was trapping a portion of his nen within it, creating a barrier between his nen and the fire. Once again he thrust his paw forward, noticing the small pulse of nen he used to project the fire away from him, and again he struck the same dummy dead on, the training dummy now aflame. He stepped back and motioned for me to have a go.

I drew on my nen once again, not caring if Kassius was distracted by the nen bubble and focused on trying to replicate what he had done. I ignored trying to maintain fire spirits this time and focused on just trying to hit the dummy.

Holding the fire spirit between my paws I tried to replicate what Kassius had done, forcing a small ball of nen into its center while not letting it interact with the flames itself, practically the opposite of what I had been doing before. Feeding it while denying it at the same time. Once I felt I had copied what he had done as best I could I thrust my paw forwards and used a pulse of nen to fire the spirit away from me.

The fire ball shot through the air at a faster speed than my last attempt, and once I lost my link with it I realised what the nen I forced into the center of the fire ball was for. Now that I had lost my link with it the barrier I created vanished and it fed the fire, but unfortunately mine seemed to make the fire ball burn bigger and hotter and it fizzled out just mere feet from the dummy.

"Very impressive, you learned that from just watching? Most need an explanation of how I did it."

"Yeah, well..." I wondered how much I should tell him. "Xavier says I'm sensitive to others nen... it's like I can see it even though it's not there..."

"Ah... that makes some sense, and not surprising considering the level of nen you possess." Kassius smiled. "You may be even more sensitive to nen than myself."

"I did notice you staring at my bubble." I smirked.

"Your.... oh!" He chuckled. "It's quite fascinating. It's not often you see nen like this, in fact I've only ever heard of the technique, never seen it."

"Technique?"

"Yes, it is an extremely advanced technique that only nen users with exceptional reserves of nen can do." He explained. "It basically envelopes and area and essentially gives the user dominance over that space. But it would seem your natural affinity lets you utilise this ability without even trying. That in itself is a statement to the strength of your nen."

I felt a little uneasy with the way Kassius talked about my nen. Was my nen a blessing or a curse? It came so easily to me, while others tried so hard... I wondered what it made others think of me. I looked round the arena at the other dragons trying to master the fire spirit exercise that I had done so easily, and they had been practising to bend for years while I've been doing it just over a week.

Somehow I began to wonder if Baroc's dislike for me was similar to how I had felt towards Kaleb growing up. Kaleb was always popular, strong and seemingly couldn't do any wrong, I knew I wasn't like that but what did I look like to the others here?

"You okay Malakye?" Kassius asked, dragging me from the pit of my thoughts.

"Yeah... yeah I'm fine." I assured him, forcing a smile.

"Right then, you keep practising and I'll go check on the rest of the class."

"Okay."

Kassius turned and walked back to the rest and I turned to stare into the brazier, feeling isolated from everyone else. I shook off the feeling and tried to forget about it by focusing on the task at paw.

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When the lesson ended I met up with Laguna, Roxis and Tristen. The three of them were talking, or more like Roxis and Tristen were interrogating Laguna, more than likely about how Laguna arrived late with me. I fought back a blush and kept moving towards them, they didn't notice me even when I was just a couple of feet away from them.

"Come on spill!" Roxis almost pleaded. "I know for a fact that you didn't go home last night, and then you turn up with Malakye, late no less!"

"You two were fucking last night weren't you?" Tristen asked bluntly.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Laguna insisted.

At first I was a little hurt at his denial, but then looking at his expression I could tell he wasn't ashamed of the fact. Maybe he was worried I didn't want anyone to know.

"So what if we were?" I asked. Surprising all three of them. "Are you jealous?"

"Wha...? Malakye!" Roxis stammered in surprise, whirling round to face me.

"So you two did fuck!" Tristen smirked, unphased by my sudden appearance. "I knew it!"

"You don't need to be ashamed of it Laguna." I assured him with a smile.

"Sorry, I'm not ashamed... I just didn't want to make things difficult for you."

"Trust me, I can look after myself and you can't make things difficult for me by just being honest." I wrapped my arm around his shoulders. "We had a good time and that's all that matters." I shifted my gaze between Roxis and Tristen. Tristen had a knowing smirk while Roxis was visibly bashful. "So I have to get going to my next lesson but maybe we can hang out some time?"

"Sure!" Tristen nodded, Roxis nodding as well, Laguna smiling.

"All right, I'll catch you guys later." I smiled as I began to make my way to my lessons with Vizimaar.

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"You're doing well Malakye!" Vizimaar praised.

"If you say so... my head is throbbing." I admitted. I felt a little annoyed as the young dragon spoke to me in a slightly condescending tone. He sounded just like his father, and I knew that it wasn't intentional, it was just the way he spoke. It probably just irked me that much more because he was so much younger than me.

We were several hours into our lesson, and it would thankfully be ending soon, I really needed a break. My head was throbbing, all we'd been doing for the last few hours is sounding out various symbols and simple words, but it was even more exhausting than regular training in some ways.

"It takes time. Once you learn the letters and meanings you'll find the rest comes pretty easily."

"I suppose... are we done for the day?" I asked, sounding more impatient than I intended, I just really wanted to get out of here and clear my head.

"I guess we are." Vizimaar smiled, closing the book we had been using. "I guess I'll see you in a few days."

"Yeah. I'll see you then." I forced a smile as I got up and made my way out.

When the large metal doors to the Valelor house shut behind me I breathed a sigh of relief. I was so glad it was over, which I regretted thinking, Vizimaar was busting his butt trying to teach me something useful. I began making my way home. The sights and sounds of Zangar helped to relax me, letting my frustrations just ebb away as I focused on just walking, clearing my mind for the moment at least.