For the first time in years, Sebastian actually paid attention to a lecture.
Most of the time he found a tree nearby, climbed it, and fell asleep, pretending that he was listening.
His mother was the most impressed.
'What happened to him out there in the forest?' She thought to herself.
Sebastian sat completely still and watched the elder.
His mother then noticed something.
All of the new companions were either sleeping or running around. All of them except for Cindy.
The creature's eyes were locked on to the lecturer just as Sebastian's were.
'What are you?' She wondered.
She knew that newborns were never that calm, at least every newborn she's ever seen, until now.
Samantha brushed it off, though, 'Maybe she's looking at something behind the elder.'
The lecture continued with the conversation being about how to bond with their beast.
"This is the most important thing you could possibly do: your beast puts their life in your hands, and you put your life in theirs. You need to be familiar with one another."
The man continued on about the ways bonding takes place between an altered and their companion at the beginning.
Since the creatures were newborns, they loved to sleep, eat, and play. That was all they really did.
"Since they love to eat and play, we're gonna do a mixture of both. In the northern direction of the forest there are stores of high-quality food that you have to claim and bring all the way back to the village. Of course there is not enough for everyone, so those that don't claim the food will have to hunt or gather their own food from the forest."
He then stuck two of his fingers into his mouth and blew. A high-pitched whistle resounded from his lips; soon a rumble resounded through the land.
The trees in the distance began to separate, and the sound of heavy footfall could easily be heard.
Soon a bear with black fur came to a skidding stop right next to the elder. He patted the creature that was as big as a medium-sized house on the side and gave him a hug.
"You been having fun out there, buddy?"
This was the reason why the surrounding forest was so safe. The companions of the adults of the village wandered the forest, protecting it from outside threats.
"You've all met Grim before, so I'll cut to the chase."
He whistled again, "Down boy."
The bear fell on its stomach with its head flat on the ground.
The elder neared its mouth.
"Now all of you should know this, but just in case you forgot," He reached his hands toward Grim's mouth, and the bear opened it. "You can tell what your companion eats by examining their body. Things like their teeth and claws. You can see Grim has sharp front teeth for tearing into his prey."
He pointed clearly to his canines and allowed everyone to see and then had Grim open his mouth even wider.
"And it may be hard to see, but he has large, flat teeth in the back of his mouth for consuming plants."
He let everyone take a look into his mouth and then grabbed a small fish from a bucket to the side that would be nowhere near enough to fill the large beast.
"Here you go, boy."
The bear waited for the fish to land on his tongue and then slammed his big jaw shut before standing up.
"Twain," he called out to the boy with black hair who had moved out from behind Sebastian a while ago. "Your rock golem doesn't eat plants or animals, so a trial has been set up for you. Keep heading north, and you'll find a cave with a guardian protecting the minerals your creature has to eat. Good luck!"
Twain immediately set off.
He looked to everyone else.
"Now all of you take a second to analyze your beast and figure out what they are. Keep in mind the faster you do that, the faster you get to find the food."
Everyone speedily grabbed their creatures and started scanning their various features.
Sebastian was about to do the same until he felt something was off.
He looked around for a girl he was very familiar with.
He scanned the whole crowd and couldn't find her.
"Damn, clever girl. The elder never said we had to wait for him to finish talking."
Sebastian stood up and started running north.
'I know this forest like the back of my hand. I can find out what Cindy eats and run at the same time.'
He maneuvered around the trees while scanning Cindy.
"Okay, I'm almost positive you're a meat eater, but let's check just to be safe."
He knew she had claws since he had seen her bring them out and retract them once in a while. While it was difficult, he opened her mouth while running and looked at her teeth.
He suddenly looked up and had to pivot and spin because he almost ran face first into a tree.
He went back to her mouth and saw her sharp front teeth and then looked further back and saw even more sharp teeth instead of flat molars.
"Okay, meat eater it is."
He tossed her back on top of his head and accelerated.
Soon he reached a clearing that had a few trees.
He saw a pretty skinny girl with pale skin and dark green hair standing in one of the trees. A branch above her had a rope tied around it that held a large, unidentifiable dead animal that had already been skinned.
She was cutting the rope before she stopped once she spotted Sebastian approaching.
She quickly looked to the side to find her companion.
"Come out, Boy!"
A large black and yellow beast with wings and a prominent stinger coming from its behind suddenly began moving.
"Go get them, Stinger."
A buzzing sound originated from his large wings that began to flap rapidly.
He sped up more and more as he got closer to Sebastian.
He saw the animal coming straight at him.
"That is one big baby bee!"
Cindy, on top of his head, crouched in anticipation and growled as the creature got closer.
Sebastian grabbed her off his head and tossed her into the air, right into the flight path of the bee.
"Good luck, Cindy!"
While Cindy flew through the air, Sebastian sprinted forward. He couldn't afford to worry about her too much since he had his own fight to worry about. He couldn't afford to let her finish cutting the rope and lever with the corpse.
He reached the bottom of the tree and began scaling it.
While he climbed the tree, Cindy and the Stinger had long clashed in the air.
Stinger had seen Cindy flying towards him and stuck his abdomen out toward her, trying to sting her.
Cindy had seen this and oriented herself midair just before they reached each other. Bone armor appeared around her forehead and tail.
Her long tail swiped at the bee, and their bone tail and stinger collided, sending them both flying away from each other.
Cindy hit a tree and latched onto it with her sharp claws, scaling it quickly.
The bee had hit the ground pretty hard and was preparing to fly again.
On another tree Sebastian had made it all the way to the branch the girl was on.
She turned around and put her knife away.
"How you doing, Sebastian?" She said in a calm voice.
"I'm doing fine, Jade. I would be doing better if you left."
"Yeah, not gonna happen."
Sebastian looked behind her and saw that the rope was almost cut all the way through.
Before he could see anymore, though, he saw something that completely shocked him.
A tail began to come from behind Jade, long enough to wrap around her twice. It had a stinger just like her companion's, with a liquid seeping out of it.
'Uh oh.'
He could not afford to be stung by that. If he recalled correctly, that species of beast had a paralyzing venom that would put him out of commission for a while.
Sebastian tensed his fist, and bone began to protrude from his knuckles. Some bone began to protrude from the back of his hand. White plates of bone gave him a defensive option against her stinger.
'Why did this happen all of a sudden?' He thought.
He focused and raised his fist in front of his face. He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The more bone, the better.
"Oooohhhh, so intimidating," Jade said.
While Jade made fun of Sebastian, she was actually nervous. Sebastian was a great fighter and rarely lost. Plus, all of the people of the village were raised fighting in hand-to-hand combat because you never know how your body will adapt to becoming an altered.
Sebastian was lucky enough to have knuckle and hand enhancements while Jade gained a tail, which she never had before and was not good at using yet.
'I don't really like my chances,' she thought.
Either way, she had to fight.
Jade crouched down and let her tail hang above her before launching herself toward Sebastian.