My Werepanther System: Starting with Nine Lives

"Come on Victor! Stop playing with your food and finish off the runt already!" A bald headed man said with a gravel lined voice.

His voice echoed across the massive grass field, highlighting its emptiness beyond himself, the circle of gossiping students and the two teenage boys within.

Like the other students, they were bald, in uniform and sporting a wooden blade and crossbow filled with stick rounds.

They hurt more than they should've.

Evidence shown in the bruises on the smaller combatants face and legs. The superficial wounds were beginning to bleed through his military green combat pants and t-shirt.

Victor was like a shark— or some other land based predator that was both large and entirely too fast.

A tiger, ambushing at the first— of many, signs of weakness in his opponent.

But like the coach said, he played with his food.

The smaller of the two lunged with his wooden blade in a low slash.

Victor jumped on powerful legs and flew eight feet into the air.

The circle of students watched in awe.

"That's it, Rex. Set him up since he wants to play!" The bald man yelled with so much passion the veins went wild beneath his sagging neck skin.

Rex shut him out, zeroing in on his brutish feral target in all his dread headed and muscled glory.

Victor. Once a foreign exchange student adopted into a family of nationally recognized Drift-Soldiers. The Fauve Military-Guild, Modern day nobility if you will. Even if he wore the same uniform as Rex, he stood out.

Victor soared.

Rex took aim with his military grade training- crossbow. From above, Victor couldn't do his lightning fast evasions and parries.

Rex closed one eye and put the iron sights right between the prodigies big orange eyes.

"Orange????"

Rex fired.

Victor was fire.

Stripes like the fur of a jungle predator danced on his skin, spewing smoke and steam as spinning arcs of flame erupted from all around him.

Rex's volley of fired bolts turned to ash as if he was throwing twigs at the sun.

When Victor landed, the slowly shrinking circle of invested students dispersed to avoid the blurring heat of his aura.

He stood alone in the grass, tiger stripes of fire circulating on his skin. Grass entering a state beyond ash at his feet—

"God dammit, Victor! No use of Inheritances at Primary School! I don't care if todays your last day, I'll fail you right now!"

Victors fiery skin disappeared as he gasped in shock— a unfitting reaction for someone of his size and stature, "Coach Key, it was a joke!"

Coach key's neck veins slithered up to his greasy forehead. His eyebrows were so thick they covered his eyes. Usually. Now they raised up to reveal his beady brown irises. "Come find the smile on my face, ya panzy!"

"I have perfect control over it, coach." Victor mumbled.

"Yea I bet you do. With your perfect skin and your cool hair and your perfect muscles— get out of my face! If I never blew my knee out in my first Drift Mission I'd be in the Fauve family too."

Everyone tried to stifle their laugh.

Everyone failed.

"Alright, ya jackasses. Everyone give me fifty laps since we're feeling froggy!" Coach Key yelled so violently spittle flew and stuck to his giant mustache.

"Yes sir!" Everyone replied happily.

It was their last day.

They could've ran fifty thousand laps. All that mattered was the future. The next step. Powers, fame, success, money, it was all so much closer.

Rex ran with a distorted gait in his step. The bruising on his ribs and left leg from Victor's horrifying accuracy were beginning to go sour. The pain spread like it had fingers under his skin.

"Kalisaurus Rex, my boy! Good fight." Victor ran beside him. He was like a celebrity the way he had to stop and socialize with everyone.

He still found it odd some days that they were friends. Before Victor, he didn't have any. Not really. He was never in any rush for friends anyway. Maybe that's why Victor and him got along. He knew it was real.

"Good joke." Rex replied.

Victor grinned slyly. "I couldn't let you beat me on the last day, bro. That's bad karma, I think."

"So, you did cheat?" Rex side eyed the giant.

"Oh hell yea. Desperation is a warriors trait. Drift Soldiers are the most powerful warriors in human history…. gotta emulate what I can, you know?"

"Your father's philosophy is dark as hell." Rex commented.

Victor went serious for a moment before laughing dryly, "Why do you think I try NOT to talk to him. Dudes got some max level ptsd and it's infectious."

Rex shrugged as he ran his thirty-eighth lap, "To be fair, if I was one of the most accomplished Drift-Soldiers alive, I'd also be pretty fried mentally. I can't imagine. You ever think about what he's seen?"

Victor was silent for a moment. "I try not to."

Rex cringed. "Why would you ask that, dumbass?" Then he shoulder bumped Victor as they ran, not at all worried that the big guy might trip, "My bad, man. That was a crazy question." 

"Trust me, I've been asked worse." 

"Oh I'm sure." Rex replied, "But onto better things totally not related to Drift Dimensions and the like..." 

Victor side eyed him. 

"You have your Inheritence Ability. Tiger Flame. When did that happen??" 

Victor cleared his throat, "You remember when I missed classes last Monday?" 

"So, over the weekend? Painful?" Rex asked. 

"Well.....I had a two hundred year old Mana signature grafted to my DNA structure. I've had better Saturdays. But it wasn't too bad. I'm ready for Combat-School..."

Rex-- like everyone else, regarded Combat-Schools with a sort of terrified excitement. All aspiring Drift-Soldiers went through Combat-Schools. There were many for many different forms of combat, monster slaying and Drift Dimensions exploration.

If you did good enough, you became a celebrity. A modern day superhero. You'd be set for life. That sounded like heaven to Rex. A bit of irony there considering the fact that Drift Dimensions were also unofficially called hellzones....

"Hello? Earth to Rex!?"

Rex regained focus, "Yes?" 

"I asked if you have an Inheritence Ability waiting for you when you enter Combat-School?" Victor inquired as they rounded lap forty-three. 

Rex tried to ignore the pang of jealousy that rose up in him, "No. Nothing like that." 

"Ah, you'll be straight. Some of the most decorated Soldiers started out with simple Drift Armaments."

"Yea..... Simple." Rex replied before thinking, "Most of the recorded deaths were also owners of simple Drift Armaments... man, I'm fucked."

"Plus, you got me on your team. Bro, you're set." Victor clapped. 

"Right. You gonna heal me when a demon-dog bites my leg off? How about a septic bite from a goblinoid?" 

Victor simply smiled. Beads of sweat rolled down his dark skin.

"Dude, don't play with me. You're a walking explosive. I actually hope you're not on my te--" Rex trailed off as Victor's fiery tiger stripes returned as stripes of gold. Warm waves flowed from him, hitting Rex like an unknown healing elixir in dust form. 

His bruises calmed as the tingling heat penetrated. Suddenly he was running faster. Suddenly everyone was. 

"SHOW OFF! TEN MORE LAPS!"

They'd never run extra laps so easily.

When class ended, the students packed up their bags and headed home in their usual clicks. 

Rex couldn't find Victor beneath the sea of sicphants surrounding him at the schools exit gates so he grabbed his black gnoll-leather backpack covered in stitched holes and headed home.

Which was wherever was safest for the night. 

That was few places on the coastal edges of Red-Tree City, California. 

But he had his spots.

For the night, it was with the strays on the rooftop of a conjoined set of projects. Also known as low income apartments. He could hear the dysfunction through the walls. Smell the burner smoke spilling from underneath the janitor door. It almost made him appreciate his orphanage.

Then he thought back to Victor as a stray spotted cat sat on his chest under the evening sun.

"Combat-School starts tomorrow. I have to catch the bullet-train to Fort Blade by sunrise. With no family..... no money.... I can't afford a Drift Armament.... an Inheritence would be real nice right now, but oh well. Ive made it this far. I wanna go all the way. I want a warm meal.... I want a house. I want..." 

Rex went to sleep that way. Under the setting sun surrounded by his fellow strays, murmuring about a better life as if the concrete rooftop wasn't atomizing his spine. 

It was a simple life, bound to not stay that way as a much larger cat with jaguar spots climbed onto the roof. Eyes gleaming. Fangs glinting under the evening ambiance.