The Girl and the Wolf

Irma had hoped the training would get easier with time. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Each time she felt like she was starting to get used to it, the difficulty increased. It made her feel powerless, like she had no control over her life. That feeling made her angry, it made her fight much harder, train much harder, trying to wrestle that control back.

Her only respite was Gaude's mansion, and even there she had to keep an eye on that little vampire. There was just no way she didn't have ulterior motives towards Gaude.

They couldn't even complain – Captain Ross was doing each of the exercises along with them. Some even suspected that he was wearing training weights under his clothes while doing it.

The only good thing was that now her training was an hour shorter than that of the rest. She had to spend that time meditating, connecting to her wolf. She had felt a faint connection but hadn't managed to communicate with it again.

It had been six days since her first session with the tribal people. Finally, the instructor said: "Alright, agent Smith. Wrap it up. Mr. Vywin is waiting for you."

One of the men said snidely from the side: "So that's where you've been going every day, giving head to the Head?"

Irma huffed and deemed the man's comment not worthy of an answer.

"Agent Arkis. Double push-ups for two days."

"Yes Sir!" The man shouted.

Irma knew the man wasn't enthusiastic for training. It was just that those who disagreed were given the option of a 'sparring session'. Those that were foolish enough to choose it were also the reason why the stocks of various recovery medicines had rapidly decreased.

After the 'sparring' was over, the victims had to scrub the floor clean of their own blood. It all happened while the rest of them were still going through the usual training routine. It definitely helped curb undesirable behavior.

Irma had asked if such a punishment wasn't much too excessive for their mistakes, but Captain Ross had replied: "Just following the rules."

And it was the truth, too. He had been informed just what kind of people he was training. It was his understanding that such people should be guided to the straight and narrow with an iron rod. He was especially encouraged by Mr. Vywin's statement of 'as long as they still have a sliver of life left in them, they can be brought back to peak condition'.

When some of them tried to act uncouth towards Mr. Vywin's new pet project, he decided that it was best to set an example as he couldn't always keep watching over her. After he had beaten the two men into bloody messes of broken limbs and a lot of bruises, one of the trainees had complained to Mr. Vywin, but instead of being reprimanded, Carter had been given a raise instead.

Irma stopped reminiscing over bad memories once she opened the door to the small, unnamed room. Gaude was already sitting on top of one of the armchairs and a bundle of herbs was placed onto a carved silver disc, very similar to the one that the tribe of Skinwalkers had.

"It still feels weird that you're my little brother and acting like the grown-up.", Irma said while sitting into the free chair.

Gaude disregarded Irma's statement and spoke: "I've been getting more information about the whole process from the Skinwalkers. As I understand, you seem to be doing rather well with keeping the connection up, seeing that your eye color hasn't reverted to the original. Once you get there, just bond with your wolf. I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

Suddenly, Irma saw a smoke wolf rushing at her. She hadn't even noticed when Gaude had lit the herbs.

In the blink of an eye, she was back in the forest.

"I'm here, wolf, let's play some!~", she spoke in a sing-song voice.

Irma had been looking forward to meeting the wolf again – it was like having a pet without having to take care of its daily necessities.

The wolf walked out from between the trees. It walked to her, the hesitation of the previous time nowhere to be seen. The wolf sniffed her and she stroked its head a few times.

"Do you want to go for a run?"

The wolf barked happily in agreement.

She started running first but, even with all the training she had gone through, she was quickly overtaken by the wolf. She changed direction, and her lead lasted only for a moment. They kept running with Irma occasionally changing direction at steep angles and the wolf ran past her each time.

Irma felt the freedom of running in the wilderness. It made her excited and happy happy. It made her wolf happy.

She noticed that she was slowly but surely starting to close the distance between herself and the wolf. Then she noticed that her bare arms were now covered in long, gray hair. Startled by her discovery, she stopped abruptly. She was a bit worried, thinking that maybe she was going through a similar change on the outside and scaring little Gaude with it.

The wolf looked at her, with its head tilted, as if to ask: 'is there something wrong?'.

She shrugged, figuring that it was just a part of the weirdness and there was no way it would just manifest on the outside and ran some more. Suddenly, the forest faded away from her. She felt that her wolf was satisfied. Irma was satisfied as well, she felt like there was this clog in her mind that was cleared away, making her feel much lighter.

"It seems to me that you had some fun. I'm glad to know that you can still smile like that.

I believe your bond with the wolf has become even stronger now.", Gaude commented, a happy smile on his face.

Irma didn't ask anything; she just took a look into the mirror. As expected, there had been a change. Fortunately, her worst expectation hadn't come to pass, instead her hair had become a few shades darker.

"Continue what you've been doing. Your first transformation is drawing close, so it's best to prepare your body and mind for it."

Irma became a bit worried now. If the first time was something that needed full preparation, it had to be something dangerous. However, knowing that there was an entire tribe out there that was able to successfully transform lessened her worries greatly.

###

It turned out that physical preparation meant a lot of pain, even after she'd been given some sort of liquid painkiller. At the end of each physical training day, she was to undergo an hour of flexibility training.

Her muscles, tendons and joints were forcefully stretched and bent. She could've sworn that they were torn a few times. Once she was forced into an inhumanly stretched out position, she was given the various medications.

The pain felt as if her tendons were being burned with red-hot spikes, giving off snapping sounds.

On the plus side, she had become a lot more flexible and could pull off all the CQC moves perfectly. Still, she dreaded the next session. Her training companions seemed to derive some sort of sick pleasure from 'helping her stretch'.

Those that had gotten a bit too handsy were only given a choice between a 'sparring session' and a 'double sparring session', but that didn't stop them from putting extra effort into the task they were assigned. The extra effort simply manifested in them putting a lot more strength into 'helping her'. Both of her shoulders and hips had been dislocated at least once, the same went for her knees. At least Carter took stretching her neck upon himself, otherwise she might've ended up with a snapped neck, too.

Fully aware that Gaude was the one to blame for those stretching sessions, Irma swore bloody revenge in her mind, and she thought she knew the way to get it – after all, Gaude was a part-dragon, according to his own words, and she believed that it should be somewhat similar to being a Werewolf.

Three days after Irma's flexibility training started, Carter seemed to have come up with something new – sparring in the mornings.

"The rules are simple." Captain Ross explained.

"You can challenge anyone you want. If you want to increase your ranking, you'll have to win a spar against someone with a higher rank than you.

I believe now I've made you curious about what you get for your rankings.

It's simple. Those that reach top three after Saturday morning spar get to go home for Sunday. The rest get 24 hours of training to catch up."

Since there was no obligation for Irma to remain in decided to use the sparring matches for her own purposes. There had been four men that had enjoyed tormenting her – the very same four that had joined as the 'last minute additions' along with Gaude. She challenged them one after the other. While what she did wasn't as vicious as the Captain's 'sparring sessions' due to her lesser abilities in the field of inflicting bodily harm to others, she did manage to leave them with dislocated joints and multiple bruises that went all the way through to their internal organs.

They didn't stay on the ground for long – the good doctor's oral medicine fixed them up in mere minutes. She still had to pop their joints back into the sockets, though. The doctor had done that without giving them painkillers first. Irma decided to tread carefully around the doctor after that.

During the next stretching session, those assigned to assist her were quite tame.

"Are you men or spineless maggots? Do your assigned task properly or you'll all get double training for a week!" Captain Ross just had to ruin her easier life. She'd make sure to get back at him. Eventually. He seemed to be trying hard to try and piss her off, and it was working, too.

Irma took a hateful glance towards Gaude who was happily sparring away with one of the men in the distance. The boy seemed to be growing fast, he seemed to be giving as hard as he was getting, and it didn't look like his opponent was pulling his punches either.

The moment Captain Ross finished speaking, the weight on her back more than doubled and Irma felt and even heard her tendons being torn apart once again. Judging by the pain, even her spine may have gotten some minor injuries at that moment.

The doctor had apparently heard it happen too and quickly shoved a spoonful of recovery medicine in her mouth.

This kind of training continued until Saturday evening. That was when Gaude called for her once again.

This time she paid more attention to him. A tiny jet of fire shot out of his fingertip the moment she took a seat.

"Tell me, how did your meditation go this week?"

"I felt a stronger connection. Once I even felt the dry leaves under my feet."

"I think while you're in your mindscape, you should concentrate on that connection and do what the wolf wants to do."

###

Gaude observed Irma once again. She was just sitting still for a while, but suddenly she got up from her seat. Gaude observed Irma's actions with eyes full of curiosity – he had never seen anybody becoming a Skinwalker before, and now he could observe the process up-close and personal.

Gaude strained his Legilimency skills, managing to get a small glimpse into what was going on inside Irma's mindscape. He saw Irma and a black-furred wolf standing opposite each other. Both of them suddenly looked towards Gaude and suddenly, he found himself outside of Irma's mind, with no way back in. He didn't want to increase the intensity of his intrusion either, in fear of hurting Irma.

It would've actually been a proper shame for Gaude if he couldn't do at least that much – he had raided another five criminal organizations and tried information extraction through Legilimency. Needless to say, the first few attempts had ended up in a less than stellar way – he had used a decently sized strand of magic to try and break through any mental resistances they might've had, only to discover that the only thing that was there to break was their consciousness.

Gaude had ended up with a row of proper vegetables, unable to even eat by themselves. Gaude decided to just put them in storage, to be cared for by the elves until he needed them for the next experiment. After all, recycling is what keeps the world sustainable.

After the fifteenth criminal, he had fine-tuned the amount of magic required to access another person's memories. At least that's what he thought – in fact he had found the point where their brain didn't turn into a mush yet, but still caused extreme amounts of pain. He only discovered the issue after interrogating ten more people. As those ten had only minor mental injuries after getting their mind cracked open with the equivalent of a fire axe instead of a scalpel, they were considered suitable for the training program.

"Make her float." Gaude whispered, forgetting about his ability to give the same command with a simple thought. The event had startled him a bit. Laly did exactly that, and just in time.

Irma's arms and legs started moving as if she was running, faster and faster. Her hair darkened and her features became sharper. Her skin seemed to take on a grayish hue. It seemed that the connection between her, the wolf and her body had become much stronger.

Irma's hair rose on the side of her head, forming the shape of pointy ears. Her face formed into a primal grin, as if she was on the hunt as a wolf.

Gaude watched with rapt attention how the scars on her face contracted until only three whisker-like marks were left. Then the marks also appeared on the other side of her face, creating the image of a cute wolf-girl.

Seeing the fluffy tufts of hair protruding from Irma's head, Gaude decided to get a closer look. There was just that strange sort of an attraction emanating from them.

As he floated close enough to touch them, he slowly and carefully reached out his hand. When he was about to make contact, the pseudo-ear twitched, surprising Gaude. He pulled his hand back at lightning speed, he wasn't willing to go through another round of scolding by Irma in case she considered him not asking permission first an invasion of her privacy.

###

In an instant, Irma was back with her wolf. She looked at it and it looked back. The wolf had one hazel eye and one blue. She hadn't noticed that before. The wolf's snout seemed a very dark brown instead of black in color.

Suddenly, she felt as if somebody was looking at them from a certain direction. Both Irma and her wolf looked towards the intruder. Irma willed the intruder to go away, and they did.

She nodded to the wolf and tried to feel what it wanted to do. She was slowly filled with excitement. Her body felt like it wanted to move fast, faster than ever before. She gave in to her desire and started running.

Her wolf was running right beside her. She felt the wind in her hair and in her fur. She felt her feet and paws striking the ground rhythmically.

She felt an overwhelming freedom. She was her wolf and her wolf was herself. She kept going faster and faster, and suddenly she didn't feel her wolf beside her anymore. She wasn't worried – she felt the wolf inside her. They were one.

After a while, it seemed like Irma was coming out of the trance.

"Welcome back to the civilized world.", Gaude said smugly, while looking at her.

Her hair had retained the nearly black color; however, the pointy formations were gone. I felt saddened by that fact for some reason.

The whisker marks had been reduced to faint traces.

"I have good news and bad news for you. Which would you like to hear first?"

She seemed contemplative for a while and then replied: "Umm, the good news, I think?"

"The good news is that you won't need scar removal for your face."

"What's the bad news then?" She asked, puzzled.

"Your face has changed quite a bit, and you seem to have some permanent whiskers on you."

She looked at Gaude disbelievingly, then rushed to the mirror.

When she turned around, there were tears in her eyes.

"You know, Irma, you look really cute with those whiskers! Now I have two cute sisters.", Gaude said with a smile, a certain shine to his eyes that remained unnoticed by Irma.

Suddenly, Irma had rushed up to Gaude and picked him up in a mama bear hug.

"Thank you so much, Gaude! I don't know what I would've done without you!"

"I'm just really happy to be free of those ugly scars." She was all smiles, as if there were no worries left in the world.

"Before I forget. While you were inside your mindscape, you had fluffy ears on your head for a moment. Can I touch them next time?"

Gaude had decided that he'll have to conduct an array of tests on those unruly tufts of hair. They had to be a manifestation of the wolf somehow. He wanted to know how they would interact with the host. It was in no way related to the fact that big pointy ears were cute. Besides, why would a man who carved a bloody path through the cartel territory be influenced by something cute?

Gaude then took a glance at the clock fixed above the door. "I guess it's time to go back home. Laly, if you would be so kind."

Taking a break and seeing a form of little-known magic being performed right in front of his eyes had been a pleasant change of pace. The unexpected warm hug had melted a tiny corner of his frozen heart. Yet, Gaude knew that his job was far from done – there were monsters on every corner, some more human-looking than others.

However, Gaude wasn't ready to deal with the true monsters yet. The only thing he was confident in beating were Muggles with guns, provided they didn't get the drop on him.