I slowly opened my eyes to see Davy. He had returned to normal, but his expression showed he was still worried. His cheeks were still reddened, and by looking closer I could tell they were wet from his tears.
At the moment I was resting on his lap, and I could feel him wrapping bandages around my hands. I tried to sit up, but he immediately pushed me back into his lap.
"Rest." He said looking into my eyes with a serious look.
I couldn't really argue with him. My body didn't exactly want to move either, and his thighs were oddly warm and comforting.
"How long have I been asleep?" I asked resigning to Davy's care.
"15 maybe 20 moments." He clearly meant minutes, but I didn't bother correcting him.
"And what's everyone else doing?"
"The same thing. Scary lady is making them fight."
"Is that so? I guess beating me to near death did have a purpose."
"Seems so."
Davy didn't talk much; he just quietly applied my bandages. The way he wrapped the cloth around my fingers was gentle, and he would keep asking me if it hurt. Everything hurt right now, but I didn't tell him that.
It was strange yet comforting to see this side of Davy. He is normally quiet, but that's because he's too embarrassed to say anything or struggles to say it. Now he looks too anxious to say anything. Seeing me go berserk must have scared him more than I first noticed.
'Fuck, what should I say?' I thought as I watched Davy monotonously wrap my hands. I really wanted to cheer him up and promise him I won't act like that again. However, I don't make promises I can't keep, I don't know if I will act like this again or not.
Although this is the first time, I felt the need to protect myself this bad, it felt too easy to act that way. I completely lost my cool and composure to the point that immense pain and the physical limitations of my body weren't enough to stop. My hands were proof of that.
'What if Davy hadn't been there? Would I have actually torn out her throat or would I have kept beating her until my hands became completely dysfunctional?
That isn't how a sane person would act, not even a wild animal would act like that.
That's how a monster would act.
I'm completely destructive!
Not just to me, but people like Davy as well.'
As my thoughts grew darker and darker, my hands began to shake, and my eyes started getting cloudy. I could only think of self-deprecating things and couldn't help but see the terrified look Davy gave me in my head.
When Davy noticed he wordlessly embraced me without a moment of hesitation. He was incredibly soft and smelt sweeter than his usual cat smell. His presence made me feel like everything was going to be okay and made me feel better about myself. It reminded me that it was originally Davy's embrace that snapped me out of my frenzy.
"Thank you." I gently whispered into his ear making him blush slightly.
"You welcome." He replied making me chuckle a little.
"Am I interrupting something?" I just now realised that Miss Duffy had been sitting next to us monitoring the other students. "First thing I want to say is sorry."
I left Davy's embrace sitting up. "There is no need to apologise. You informed us of the risks beforehand and it was my own choice to go along with the training."
Miss Duffy let out a sigh and then smiled at me. "Thanks, I was worried that I might have demotivated you, but that doesn't seem to be the case. How do you feel?"
"My hands and ribs hurt, but I don't think there is any permanent damage."
"That's good, but it isn't what I meant. How does your magic feel?"
"My magic?"
"Yeah, do you feel closer to it? Does it feel easier to transform?"
"I don't really think I should be transforming with my hands still injured."
"Then just transform a different part of your body. It might take some getting used to, but you have the partial transformation now."
I looked at miss Duffy to see if she was joking, but she seemed to be telling the truth. So, I decided to take a deep breath and focus on my mouth and nose. With every breath, I tried to imagine that only that part of my body will transform.
And sure enough, when I opened my eyes, I had a snout in place of a mouth and nose.
I wanted to shout "Cool!" but it came out as a bark.
I focused again and it retracted back into my face transforming into my mouth and nose again.
"Wow. It feels completely natural now. Why isn't this used in school?" I asked when I regained the ability to speak.
"During the battle of Arthur over a hundred years ago, a war surgeon named Henry observed that hybrids had a much more accelerated magical growth in the battle compared to the other supernatural who were fighting.
After he performed many experiments on the battlefield, Henry discovered that in a moment when I hybrid felt their life threatened the concentration of magic in a hybrid's blood would increase drastically. The increase in magic would make them develop all their magical abilities faster, but also cause them to enter a violent frenzied state.
In the end, Henry's theories could never be proven outside the battlefield, and he was executed using his position as a war surgeon to exploit to test on patients. His theories were never put into practical use. Well except for his descendants, of course."
"So, you're…"
"Yep, Grandpa Henry was quite the tyrant. He used to make me and my sisters fight till our bodies would give out. It took me a while to realise that he didn't hate us but just wanted his grandkids to have the strength to protect themselves." Miss Duffy had a happy look on her face when she talked about her grandfather. "But listen to me ramble I'm sure you want to know more about your transformation. Fire away, ask any question you want."
The main three questions I had were:
"How did I damage my hands this bad, shouldn't I have stopped from the pain?"
"Why and how can you make your body like steel?"
"How was Davy able to use the so quickly partial transformation without going through what I did?"
The three answers I got were:
"When hybrids with a strong animal, use partial transformation the force their muscles can output is a lot stronger than a human body can realistically withstand. So, using partial transformation unrestrained can be risky."
"Like I said ask your therianthropics teacher I'm no good at explaining magic outside transformation."
"I don't know. Magic is still a thing we don't fully understand, so odd things happen from time to time. If I had to make an educated guess since Davy was already quite skilled at transforming, he probably didn't need as big of a push as you needed."
After answering my questions, miss Duffy went back to teaching the others. They were all sparing with each other, and they all had one of the healing rings I had. So far, the one that had made the most progress was Loki, and not far behind him was Lleu.
Both of them had transformed part of themselves, but it was similar to when I first did it. It didn't last long, and they didn't even realise it until they looked at it.
I was curious how everyone was going to progress, but at this point, I wanted to be on my sofa curled up in a blanket and watching a movie. I tried standing up, but whenever I put weight on my legs my ribs and ankles would scream at me.
"Why don't I take you home?" Davy suggested as he bent down to help me.
"Sure, but I'm a bit bigger than you. Are you sure you can carry?"
Surprisingly he hoisted me onto my back into a piggyback carry. I could feel his hands touching my thighs, and it was kind of embarrassing, but also really impressive. I was confident I could pick up Davy on my back, but that's because he was 2 thirds of my size. It was completely bizarre the other way around.
"Edward make magical stuff in his spare time. He make me a strong neck ring for emerg-n-Cees." He said revealing a necklace underneath his shirt.
He smiled as we began to carry me home.