"Great looks like a lot of you showed up!" Miss Duffy exclaimed. Most of the omega class met her after the school day for the extra training. The only ones missing were Ame the snake girl, and Elizabeth the owl girl.
"So, what kind of training are we doing, miss Duffy?" I asked, making miss Duffy look around suspiciously.
"I won't talk about it here because I'm technically not allowed to do this without going through the proper channels, but that would take forever. So, the training will begin with a clearing in the forest, we can run there as animals to warm up." Miss Duffy transformed into her coyote, and her clothes transformed with her. The only thing that stayed the same was the bag she was wearing.
We all followed her and transformed into our animal forms. Some took a few more tries than others, but after a few minutes, we were all running like beasts.
The clearing that misses Duffy led us to seemed to be manmade, and it was big enough to fit three or four tennis pitches. The grass had been cut not too long ago, and any other plant life had been pulled out and tossed to the side. There also seemed to be beaten-up boxing bags led on the ground next to strange holes in the ground.
"Welcome to my hideout!" Miss Duffy transformed back and addressed the class. "I cut down all the trees here and got rid of all the plants. I even got a mage friend to put marks on the trees around here, so the forest would be harder to find. So, if you want my training you will have to keep this place a secret, can everyone agree?"
Miss Duffy's eyes showed that she wasn't messing around, and her teeth were revealed as if to threaten us. We all nodded and after we all agreed miss Duffy returned to normal.
"Good, but before we start, I'll warn the way I'm going to teach you isn't common practice for a reason. It's possible that my training could hinder your growth rather than help it." Miss Duffy didn't was uncharacteristically serious.
"What's so dangerous about it?" Lleu asked nervously.
"You probably won't understand until you get an example of what we will be doing. Kate would you be my volunteer."
I was a little shaken, but my desire to know more about my magic was strong. "Sure, miss Duffy."
I stood next to her, and she tossed a small object from her bag to me. "Go ahead and put that ring on, otherwise you probably won't survive."
"What?!" I quickly put the ring on, as miss Duffy started stretching. She had undressed until she was wearing nothing but a tank top and shorts, even her shoes and socks were tossed aside.
Whilst she was doing stretches, I got very nervous. "Did you say something about survival?"
My question wasn't answered, but miss Duffy seemed ready to show me.
"I'll apologise in advance, so try not to hate me afterwards." With those words, miss Duffy walked slowly up to me and then planted her fist directly into my stomach. The attack surprised me because of how nonchalantly she approached me.
Luckily, she missed my ribs because I'm sure she would have shattered them. It felt almost as if there was now a hole in my stomach and the air in my throat burned as I tried to breathe.
She didn't waste a second after her first attack, and before my body had a chance to react, she kicked me in the ribs sending me flying. Even for a strong person, the kick was too powerful. It was definitely magically enhanced somehow.
The kick had knocked me to the ground, and my winded body wasn't letting me move. All I could do was watch miss Duffy slowly approach as I spasmed in an attempt to move.
'What's this supposed to teach me? I know miss Duffy wouldn't do this without it benefiting me somehow so what am I supposed to do, and how am I supposed to do it.' I had faith miss Duffy wasn't actually trying to kill me. She had been kind to me so far, and although her personality is a little wild, she wasn't the type of person to kill someone without a reason.
However, whatever faith I had left me when I saw her face. She was smiling.
It was the kind of smile a predator makes when they are about to finish off their prey. Her eyes were ravenous, and I could tell she was thinking about how to end my life.
I knew all of this because I had seen it before on my own face. When I first transformed into a wolf, my reflection showed the same look miss Duffy was giving me.
My eyes darted around me for help, but I looked at my classmates and saw they couldn't help me. Even if they wanted to help me, they were all frozen with the same fear that infected me.
There was no way I could escape. The moment my back would turn to run, miss Duffy's claws would finish me off. My only way out was through miss Duffy.
As my mind raced through my options, I gained a little more control over my body, but Miss Duffy already stood over me raising her foot above my head, ready to crush my skull.
I rolled out of the way, but there was a crater where my head used to be.
'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' I screamed in my head as I saw my life flash before my eyes. 'Fuck it! If I'm dying here, I'm giving this bitch a couple of scars to remember me!"
I ungracefully jumped up at miss Duffy and tackled her to the ground. I had taken a lot of martial arts when I was younger that taught you to defend yourself without resolving to unnecessary violence. It was clean and purely defensive. When I was in trouble, I would fall back on it to protect myself.
But now all I cared about was killing her! I started repeatedly punching her face with everything I had, but it was like I was punching a steel beam. I could hear my bone crunch, but I knew if I stopped then I would die.
I caught a glimpse of her face and saw that she had total confidence. I was no threat to her. That made me claw at miss Duffy's face with everything I had until I physically couldn't move my hands anymore.
Her mouth moved to say something, but I couldn't hear anything other than the pounds of my heart and the cracks of my bones.
I kept trying to hurt miss Duffy in any way possible, but it was almost impossible to even leave a scratch on her let alone deal any lasting damage to her. I needed to hit a weaker and more vital region of her body.
'Her throat! I decided to stop hitting her face and moved my face closer to her neck. 'I can end this Bitch by ripping out her throat!"
I was about to bite down into her throat until I felt something soft behind me. It felt like 2 fluffy snakes wrapped around me, but I realised it was a hug. I felt my body relax, and I realised what doing. Miss Duffy hadn't touched me the entire time I was hitting her, she had no intention to kill me.
When I could hear again, I heard wails of pain and sadness. I looked confused at miss Duffy, but her expression was still, unmoving, and looked more pleased than saddened.
I turned around to see a sobbing Davy wailing and holding onto me. He was screaming "Stop! Stop!" over and over again at me.
This made me even more confused. 'Does he want me to stop hitting miss Duffy? Shouldn't he be telling her to get away from me?'
It all became clear when I looked down at my hands (if you could call them that anymore). The bones in my fingers had completely shattered, and different fragments had cut through my skin and muscle. There was so much blood pouring out of them that the ring miss Duffy gave me couldn't be seen with the blood covering it. The strangest thing was that they were furry, and my nails looked more like talons.
It was almost my entire body was covered in fur, and my nose felt elongated. 'Is this the partial transformation?' I wondered as I examined my own body.
And now that I was looking at Davy, he also seemed to be in a partial transformation. His body looked all fluffy and warm, and his facial features were rounder and softer. His eyes however, were filled with terror and worry, he couldn't let go of my hands.
In between tears, he was desperately licking my hands to try to stop the bleeding, but the amount of blood pouring out was immense. If I wasn't just in a life I would have probably been screaming in pain.
"I see that you have come back to your senses, Kate." I could now also hear miss Duffy's voice. "It's a good thing you put on that ring. Heal!"
When miss Duffy said, "Heal!" the ring given to me before began to heal, and my hands started to repair themselves. The bones moved back into place and the cuts made on my skin and muscles stitched themselves together. Once the healing was complete the ring disappeared in a burst of light.
"It's not perfect healing, but at least this way the damage isn't permeant. Your bones are going to be fragile and unfortunately, you still lost all that blood. Plus, it hurts like a Bitch."
The adrenaline from the fight was wearing off, and I could feel almost my whole body screaming. I to power through the pain and stand up, but my legs weren't on the same page as me.
The last thing I saw before passing out was my face racing to the ground.