Chapter 228: 3

Their next engagement went much the same way. Amara deftly avoided a series of attacks before spinning to his side. Her tail smacked the back of his head, then she planted a heel on the small of his back and kicked him away from her. She laughed as arrogantly as she could, then said, “For someone who works out so much, you’re kinda shit at this. Are you sure you’re the person who taught me self-defense all those months ago?”His nostrils flared as he turned to face her. “I know you think you’re helping, Amara, but this isn’t cool.”

“Well tough shit, Nick!” Amara shouted. “It doesn’t matter what you think, this is your life now! What happens the next time you find yourself trapped with a monster? We have no idea what the next problem is going to be, but we know for a fact it’s coming. What happens if Tessa’s hurt and you’re the only one there to protect her? Are you going to let her die because you’re too scared of wolfing out?”

Nick charged Amara, finally letting a bit of frustration show. “We’ve seen a lot of shit, Amara, and I’ve only been in danger once!” Once again, she easily avoided him and shoved him aside.

“And it’s a miracle you didn’t die! If I’d been even a few seconds later, Tadghán could have killed you! What if the campus had been attacked while Vee and I were in The Wilds?” Amara ran towards Nick and wrapped her tail around his leg. With another quick shove, she yanked his feet out from under him and knocked him to the ground.

“Cut it out!” Nick growled, a hint of animal aggression showing. He shook his head before jumping to his feet again.

“Every day that passes, more people find out about this shit. How many people are in the AV Club now?” Amara deflected several more hits without breaking a sweat. “What happens if your family decides to visit on the same weekend an army of vampires attack the campus? What if another Derek shows up and decides to start a fight with you during the full moon? What’s stopping you from accidentally killing him?”

“I’m in control, Amara! I didn’t transform once the entire night of the full moon!” Nick shouted, his growing fury doing nothing to support his argument.

“Yeah, and you were doing nothing but meditating in an empty chamber while we nervously watched. Do you really expect us to babysit you every full moon?” Amara decided that her playful shoves weren’t enough anymore. She ducked low to the ground and lunged at Nick, punching him in the stomach before shoving him to the ground again. “Can you honestly say you’re never going to get mad again for the rest of your life? It’s going to come out at some point, whether you want it to or not. When that happens, do you want to be scared of it? Or would you rather have the understanding to control it?”

Groaning in pain, Nick rolled over onto his stomach and punched the floor beneath him. For a brief moment, Amara saw hints of fur push through his knuckles. It receded just as quickly as it appeared, then he sprang to his feet and tried to charge her. This time, she leapt over him, using his back as a springboard before landing several feet away.

“This isn’t fair, Amara!” Nick hissed. “You’re practically seven feet tall!”

“Did Wellington fight fair when he tried to sacrifice us? Did Brandon fight fair when he threw giant monsters all over campus?” Amara continued pestering Nick with quick punches. Not enough to hurt, but enough to push him closer to the edge. “This shit isn’t fair, and it never will be. So even the odds!”

Nick shook his head, then released an angry shout many times bigger than his body. He ran at Amara again, this time with unnatural speed. Amara barely had time to dodge his attack, and as she did so, she saw stripes of fur appearing on his arms. His assault continued, and he quickly spun to try and sweep her legs. She flipped backwards, using her tail as a support. When she landed, Nick’s legs had been nearly entirely subsumed in fur.

He rose to his feet, then his entire body shuddered. His back twitched and snapped, and his chest quickly expanded. The cheap shirt covering his torso fell to pieces, revealing even more fur, and Amara grinned with excitement.

As easy as it would be to devolve into mindless fighting, that wasn’t the point of today’s session. Her first goal was to push Nick into transforming. Now, they needed to test the limits of both his abilities and his control. While there were many ways to go about this, she decided to test Nick’s speed first. Until he was fully transformed, it seemed pointless to encourage him to hold back. Amara manifested her wings, then fled to the opposite side of the spring floor.

Nick widened his stance, then grabbed the tattered remnants of his shirt and tossed them aside. Thick, light brown fur that matched his hair clung to the front of his chest, while the fur along his sides and back was several shades darker. He locked eyes with Amara, who saw the familiar deep green irises of her friend, though now with hints of animal fury. That fury, thankfully, was still many steps removed from the feral beast he’d briefly become a week earlier. After a deep, snarling growl, Nick resumed the fight.

He sprinted across the floor, closing the distance between them impressively fast. He transferred this speed into his first strike, and nearly caught Amara off guard. It took much more of her focus to avoid his attacks than it had previously, though her attention was somewhat split. As they fought, she was also keeping tabs on his transformation.

Nick’s arms were now fully covered in fur; most of it his darker shade, but his palms and fingers held patches of the lighter. Previously, his attacks had been clean and focused; a series of punches and jabs that lacked any real passion. Now he relied almost entirely on open-handed swipes, and Amara found herself evading thick, blackened claws that had previously been Nick’s nails.

Amara redoubled her focus as she deflected blow after blow. Nick moved impressively fast, and his transformation quickened with each passing second. He predicted her movements with greater ease as his reflexes improved, and he even managed to catch her off guard on several occasions. By the time she found a chance to break free and create more distance, the transformation had spread further.

His ears slid higher on his head, lengthening into furry points that twitched in the direction of Amara’s heavy gasps. Nick’s hair grew long enough to join together with the fur around his neck, forming a thick, scruffy coat. His face elongated, then his teeth followed suit, turning into sharp, powerful fangs.

After wrinkling his face and snarling in frustration, Nick returned to the fight. At least, he tried to. Amara decided to play keep away, leaping between pieces of gymnastic furniture to see just how fast Nick was. With each pivot, each incredible leap he made, the transformation grew closer to finishing. His legs grew thicker and more powerful, and his joints rearranged with a series of hollow clicks and snaps. Before long he was completely digitigrade, his feet replaced with large, furry pads that allowed him even more control as he raced after Amara.

They danced between pommel horses, balance beams, and vaulting boards, with Amara using her wings to stay one step ahead of him at all times. It was only when she opted to land on the observation deck that the two of them silently agreed to a quick pause.

Nick’s transformation had finally finished, and Amara clocked many large differences. Not just between his human form and now, but also between his current appearance and his first transformation. His original lycanthropic form had been close to nine feet tall and significantly more monstrous. Now, he stood closer to seven feet tall, and his body was a more careful blend of his human and lupine features.

His snout was smaller, his face and eyes more expressive. His torso was bigger, yes, but his size didn’t force him to hunch forward as it had previously. His legs, while still more animal than human, had softer proportions that seemed much easier to walk on. The same light brown fur that covered his chest also extended to the insides of his legs, as well as the tips of his toes, from which Amara saw clear hints of canine claws. Even his tail, while still quite long, seemed much more approachable. Its fur appeared softer and friendly, with a slight gradient of color that spanned his two dominant shades of brown.

While she didn’t dare to upset Nick by saying this aloud, Amara couldn’t resist thinking about how fluffy and cuddly his tail looked.

Curious about Nick’s current temperament, she jumped back to the floor. This proved to be an invitation, and he darted forward without hesitation. Rather than dodging or deflecting him, however, she grabbed his hands and held her ground, forcing them into a stalemate while he quietly growled in her face.

“Alright, Nick, pull back a bit. How are you feeling?” Amara asked, removing the edge from her voice.

When he tried to respond, it took him several attempts to mutter anything coherent. Even when he managed to speak, the altered shape of his mouth muddled his words somewhat. “I’m angry, Amara, and I don’t like it.” He tried to force her back, and managed to gain a tiny bit of ground.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but you need to understand what’s happening to you.” Amara redoubled her stance as Nick continued throwing himself against her. “If I let you go, are you going to attack me?”

“I…” Nick huffed, his snout twitching. “I’ll try not to.”

Amara slowly released her stance, then pulled her hands off of Nick’s. He clenched his fists by his side, and while several twitches hinted at aggression, he held his ground. “The only way to fight back against this anger is to understand it, to know what it feels like. I’m not just trying to fuck with you, Nick; I nearly lost myself to this anger once, and I refuse to let that same thing happen to you.”

“Well, congrats, you got me angry,” he snarled, perhaps accidentally due to the shape of his mouth. “Can I change back now?”

“Nope, we’re only just getting started. How long can you stay like this? Does it mess with your emotions to stay as a wolf for longer? There’s so much we don’t know, Nick.” Amara put a hand on Nick’s shoulder, holding back a smile as she felt his soft fur. “I’m just asking you to trust me. We’re the only people that have gone through transformations like this.”

“…Alright. Fine,” he grumbled. “How do we start?”

For the next several hours, Amara pushed Nick through a series of exercises meant to test the limits of his new body. Many of these trials were simple feats of strength and agility. They measured Nick’s speed, how far he could jump, how much weight he could comfortably lift. When they finished taking baseline measurements, they pivoted to sparring practice again. This time, however, Amara purposely opened herself up at key moments to gauge Nick’s strength. More than used to taking hits during hectic fights, she figured suffering through a few hits was well worth the understanding gained in the process.

His transformation was inherently tied to his emotions. Nick’s mood relaxed at several points throughout their tests, and each time his transformation started reverting. While it was quite easy for Amara to rile him up again, many of their later tests switched to focusing on his emotional control. She wanted him to understand the emotions that started the transformation, which sustained it, and which might help him revert to his human form.

While Nick never outright admitted it, Amara eventually found hints of fulfillment in his eyes. She knew the journey to accepting this new part of him was frustrating, and that he might never fully embrace his lycanthropic identity, but she hoped that these sessions might give him the outlet he needed. Even if he couldn’t push himself around his other friends anymore, at least they had each other.

The more time they spent testing Nick’s emotional control, the more comfortable he seemed with the limits of his transformation. No matter what Amara tried, she failed to get the kind of rise she’d achieved earlier in their practice. Encouraged by these results, they returned to a bit of friendly sparring, only now Amara had a secret agenda.

As expected, using herself as Nick’s training dummy had sapped quite a bit of her strength. She was thrilled at how much progress they’d made, but her inner hellfire dwindled further with each consecutive clash. This, coupled with her eventual realization that Nick was effectively naked, led to a series of very distracting thoughts. The point of this training was to see how Nick responded to various physical stimuli, wasn’t it? What harm was one more test?