"You will refer to me as Master, Master Kayson, or Contractor. I am sixteen years of age."
Okay, this kid had a serious attitude problem. Alesha didn't like how it felt to have a sixteen-year-old look down on her. Just because she was a Contracted "demon" in this world, and bound to do his bidding for the next week, didn't mean she was okay with a Master-Servant relationship. She wanted to say, "Hey kid, I'm older than you. Can't we please just treat each other casually? I don't want this next week to be torturous for either of us," but found she couldn't. Apparently the Contract she'd agreed to read his statement as an order -- and would enforce it as such.
So, instead, Alesha said, "Alright, Contractor. I'd really prefer if we spoke to one another casually, though. Would you please retract that order?"
"Hmm." Seth looked up at Alesha, for she was about a hand taller than him, and sighed. "Very well. You may call me what you wish, if that would allow us to retain an amicable relationship for the duration of your summoning."
"Thank you, Seth," Alesha replied, relaxing. Alright. So the kid was a little formal, perhaps a bit odd, but not entirely unreasonable. She could work with that.
Once they arrived at the training area, they found a few other summoner-demon pairs already there and practicing. These demons were more in line with what you'd expect. Horns, wings, arrowhead tails, bowlegged stances, they had it all. One was black, another bright red, and a third was pale blue. Still, there was far more open space available than was in use, suggesting that a lot more summoner-demon pairs could practice here simultaneously.
Seth walked over to a space far from any other pairs. "Alright. I understand you might feel hesitant to show me all of your powers, since there is as of yet very little trust between us. So first, to establish that trust, I shall show you the extent of my powers. I'm not doing this to intimidate you; please understand that I do this because I wish to show my goodwill." Very little emotion displayed across his face as he spoke, but Alesha could tell he was being sincere. What an odd boy.
He then showed a variety of spells, each stunning and inspiring awe in her. He was truly gifted. Of course, Alesha had no standard by which to judge the boy, but she was impressed all the same. He could summon shadowy vines to whip or restrain a target, cast shadow knives, enter one shadow to come out of another nearby, and make various objects out of shadows. He didn't demonstrate these, but he explained that he could also cast a variety of curses. Apparently, he didn't want to cast them on her just to prove he could. She liked that about him.
"Alright, now that you know the extent of my abilities, please show me the extent of yours," he requested.
Alesha didn't feel compelled to do so -- evidently, he had phrased the request that way so as to allow her to refuse if she wanted. She felt grateful for that. That meant she could keep her abilities with regards to consuming Chaos Energy secret; she felt a little guilty about it, but it wasn't as if she could use those at will anyways, and they would more than likely be useless to him regardless. She also didn't want to talk about Korak and her plan to feed it to people at his school.
Mentally pulling her status screen up so she wouldn't forget anything, Alesha started explaining what she could do. "I'm barely stronger than an average human adult, in terms of everything except my intelligence, which is twice that of a normal person. I can turn my nails into claws and, at will, I can make my teeth larger and sharper, like so," she added, instinctively activating her Bite skill, which she realized she still hadn't examined in a mirror. Her mouth did feel very weird, though, leading her to believe that the change was significant. The boy nodded and she deactivated the skill.
"Show me the claws, too, please," the boy added.
She hadn't done this before, so it took a second. The same instinctual principle should apply though… ah, there it was. She successfully activated the Claws skill, causing the tips of her fingers (not just her nails) to transform into wicked raptor talons, each about an inch and a half long. They weren't terribly large but would deal much more damage than human nails.
Seth gave another appreciative nod, so she deactivated this as well.
Looking down her skills list, she continued to tell him about her abilities. "I have the ability to see through low-level illusion magic, though my home world has so little of that that I don't know my limits. Another ability I haven't tried out is my ability to temporarily transform into a pink panther." She felt kind of silly talking about this one. A pink panther? Just how strange could her abilities get?
Rephrasing the System's written description of the ability, she explained, "I'm pretty sure I can do it once a day for ten minutes at a time. While in that form, I'll be invisible to humans, significantly stronger and more agile, and should be able to move silently without difficulty."
Seth tapped his chin and looked at the ground. Then, looking up at her, he requested, "Please show me the transformation."
Sighing and feeling both nervous and embarrassed, Alesha activated the skill. Though it had been generated by ingesting Korak, it had shown up on her skills list, and came just as naturally to her as the Claws skill had.
In her pink panther form, Alesha felt incredibly limber. She was definitely an anthropomorphic pink panther. She had paw-like hands, claws, a big cat's extended snout, and a tail. The part she didn't expect was that her legs were normal, aside from having a cat's paw pads on the bottoms of her feet. Wait… where were her clothes?!
She yelped and looked down at herself, though her panic quickly receded as she realized that any and all compromising anatomical details were completely gone. She was now very flat-chested and covered entirely in fur, though her front side was a much lighter pink than the rest. How very strange.
Meanwhile, the System was chuckling as if holding back laughter.
"Hey," Alesha growled internally at the System, "What's so funny?"
[Just, just go sneaking around for me would you? Climb a tree or something? See if he can find you.]
No helpful details at all, as usual when the System was in this kind of mood.
Alesha walked around, finding it incredibly easy to make no noise. The sand of the training ground didn't shift underfoot as she walked, and as she left the training ground and climbed the tree, its bark didn't break, nor did its branches tremble at all underneath her. How peculiar!
The System began giggling hysterically.
"What now?!" Alesha asked.
[You wouldn't get it,] the System answered, sounding regretful. [This ability is amazing, I wish you could appreciate it the way I do. Just use it to your heart's content and that'll be enough.]
Seth approached the tree, his eyes locked directly onto her. Wait, how could he do that? She was supposedly invisible to humans.
"Excellent," he said. "I'm not entirely human myself, so I can still somewhat see you, but your ability to move silently should be very useful. I do wish your invisibility applied universally."
"Me too," Alesha agreed, climbing down and deactivating the ability. Her clothes reappeared as she did, which made her sigh in relief. She'd been a little worried about that.
"Do you have any other abilities?" Seth asked.