Teaching and Experimenting
Tigra pulled on her black, sleeveless shirt, her new black vambraces, her black pants where the ends of them wrapped around the middle of her feet but left her heels and toes open for her to move around quickly.
While one may think that would make it hurt moving around and stepping on things, she figured out multiple ways around it. The one she uses most is one she learned in the last month since the Battle of Brightmoon.
Thanks to her high magic control, she can now hover magic out the bottom of her feet to create a barrier between the ground and her feet to prevent dirt and stones from hurting.
She stretched and popped several places before releasing a groan.
She stretched for a moment more before walking out of her quarters, heading towards the simulation room.
Today's simulation involves her old squad, which is now down to Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio.
'Wonder how they've grown since I last fought them?' She thought, tilting her head slightly. 'Last time was…last year? It was about 2-3 weeks before I became a Force Captain.'
She pulled out her communication pad and scrolled through several names that were expected to provide results that could warrant a Force Captain's attention. Seeing as she was a Force General, these kinds of things would normally be handled to those below her.
Yet, Tigra couldn't help but want to keep an eye out for talent. Even if she couldn't do much to help them grow, the least she could do would be to let other Captains know that someone has caught a General's attention.
More times than not, it appears that the Captains would scramble to potentially try to get that soldier.
Especially if it is coming from the Hero of the Horde.
'At first, I didn't see why my word would carry so much weight. I've only been on active duty for just over a year now. There are those who have been serving as long as I've been alive.' She used to think.
'On the other hand, in less than a week from graduating from the Academy, I had been promoted to Force Captain. A month or two later, news of me "holding back" three princesses,' -Perfuma, Glimmer, She-Ra- 'Capturing a town with less than 10 casualties despite being outnumbered 2:1, taking another town a month later on my own, brought back tech that is starting to revolutionize our offensive capabilities, and then the Battle of Brightmoon. Then, being promoted to Force General right after.'
Safe to say, Tigra's word carries more weight than expected, even for one as a Force General.
As she scrolled through the names, one jumped out to her.
'Scarlet. Race: Human. Age: 16. Year: 8. Specialties: Hand-To-Hand and engineering. Dream: Defeat the princesses in combat and surpass Force General Tigra in combat prowess.' She read off.
'Well then, it seems like I may actually have been right in learning your name. Maybe, I can help speed up the process.'
Tigra went through several programs before sending the recommendation to the Force Captain recommendations.
When one isn't sure who a candidate would fit best under, they can simply send the recommendation to a specific channel only known to Force Captains and above. Same for Force Generals getting applications for potential Force Captains.
She finished up before putting the tablet back up and stopped at the simulation room, making her way up to the observatory room.
She sat down on one of the chairs and pulled up one of the screens to view the simulation just as the door opened once more, drawing her attention.
"I'm surprised that you showed up to watch them." Tigra commented. "Thought that there would be something more important to focus on."
"Eh, I can spare about 10 minutes before both of us need to go and see Entrapta to check on our progress of the delaying attacks." Catra informed, sitting down next to her to look at her screen as well.
"Alright."
A buzzer suddenly went off, catching their attention that the simulation had begun.
They watched as Lonnie and Rogelio went further into the created environment while Kyle seemed to hang back and start climbing a few of the solid hologram trees.
While the Horde has access to solid holograms, there's not enough portable power to use them for much of anything. The ones that can be used are, at best, used for simulations like this one. The ones that aren't are more often used as makeshift steps.
Several small Horde bots came from the floor that would have the images of various enemy combatants ranging from soldiers to sorcerers to princesses.
Lonnie and Rogelio battled a few of them before taking them down through 'killing' strikes that simply disabled the bots from the electric connections running through their staves.
One tried to sneak up on Rogelio before finding a shot hitting it from the side, disabling it and preventing it from taking advantage of an unguarded Rogelio.
Rogelio simply gave a slight nod before moving forward with Lonnie.
"Well, that may be a mistake." Tigra muttered.
"How so?"
"They've left Kyle alone. In a real situation, Kyle wouldn't have anyone to watch his back in the case of an ambush and neither of them would know something happened to Kyle until it was way too late."
Catra hummed before pulling over another screen before messing with it.
Tigra didn't have to wait long to find out what she was doing as a Horde Bot started rising near Kyle's position from the opposite side that Lonnie and Rogelio were on.
"Two at 11, One at 1, and one by me." Kyle's voice came through.
"Status?"
Two shots came from a new position, indicating that Kyle had moved sometime during their conversation.
"Handled."
"Not bad." Catra admitted.
"Told them where their combatants would be before telling them that he may be unable for an undetermined amount of time." Tigra expanded. "Not to mention that Kyle has good attention when it comes to his surroundings."
Lonnie and Rogelio quickly made easy work of the remaining bots while Kyle took out the lone bot.
Once they were taken out, a larger bot came up from the ground and would have represented a princess.
The duo raised their weapons to prepare, only for a blast to fly over them and be blocked by a leg from the bot.
"Gave up his position with that." Catra spoke aloud. "Where there's one princess, another's not far behind. If it was Sparkles, she could easily dispatch him."
"Or Perfuma, with her earth magic."
"I thought it was nature?"
"Type of Earth magic." Tigra answered. "Similar to how there are different types of fire and lightning."
The bot marched forward and blocked their strikes before blocking another blast. Only this time, the bot pushed the two out of the way and quickly made its way towards Kyle.
"Move!"
From the screens, Tigra and Catra could see Kyle jump and roll from the tree before running in one direction before climbing another tree. He reached the top just as the bot reached where he used to be and swung a leg into it, disabling the solid hologram.
Kyle stayed out of the bot's line of sight before the duo reached the bot and got into a scuffle with it.
"Don't shoot at it. It is likely still on alert for potential snipers. The way it is moving, it isn't truly focused on us, but its surroundings."
For a minute, they continued fighting until Rogelio got swept to the side by one of the bot's legs and a beam shot his chestpiece, 'killing' him from a death shot.
Kyle shot at the bot in an attempt to take advantage of what would have been a blindsided moment from a regular soldier finishing off another soldier.
Only, it was a bot and it moved out of the way and shot at Kyle, eliminating him.
Lonnie didn't last much longer due to having the bot's full attention.
The buzzer sounded as the bot walked back to the spot it came from and went back down the hexagonal flooring.
"They lost." Catra stated.
"Yeah, but are we going to mention that the final bot was a level higher than it should have been? The kind that was meant for if there was an incoming invasion in the Fright Zone?" Tigra pointed out.
"Nope. They may think that they need to improve more than they already have. They saw how much they improved but have been shown that they still need to improve to survive the war."
Tigra gave a light nod.
"Fair. The war is only going to get more dangerous, what with the Alliance being strong once more. This time, all of the princesses want to fight back against the Horde."
"The last one didn't?"
"They were more focused on protecting their land. Today's princesses want to fight us. They won't easily break apart as the last one, when the King of Brightmoon had disappeared during a large confrontation against us. After that, the Rebellion started falling apart as Kings or Princes started falling one after the other."
"Alright, head to Entrapta's room. We're checking on how our plan to distract the Rebellion is going."
Tigra gave a mock salute before leaving the room with a small smirk.
'Those three have grown so much. Lonnie is LV 38, Rogelio at LV 36, and even Kyle is at LV 32. Kyle, the often made fun of cadet, is now 4 levels higher than the average Horde soldier.'
___________________________
Tigra walked up to a door before it slid to the side.
She walked in, only to blink multiple times at the new furniture in Entrapta's room.
She had a few more computers and consoles, two shelves with various tools on each shelf, and a couch near a few screens.
Scorpia seemed to be putting wires to connectors with some devices that Entrapta likely told her how to connect while Entrapta messed with…something.
"Where did all of this come from?"
"Oh, hey Tigra!"
"My stuff from my castle finally arrived!" Entrapta exclaimed before appearing in front of Tigra. "When do you think you can perform a few tests for me? Can I have some of your blood to look into your DNA?"
"Probably sometime this week as long as I'm not sent out on another mission and…I guess? As long as you don't try something without my permission."
Most people would have denied or simply just stopped at no. However, by giving Entrapta permission while telling her to keep her in the loop, Tigra could stop Entrapta if she started doing something she didn't like.
"Yay! We can do the tests after our check up on the bots Catra wanted to check on. But, I can take a sample right now!"
Entrapta holds up a needle which happened to gleam from the light.
"Hold your enthusiasm back and I'll let you get within 5 feet of me with that." Tigra warned. "I don't think you'll hurt me, but you can be sporadic when you get excited."
Entrapta blinked before looking at the needle before seeming to understand.
"That shouldn't be a problem. I'd much rather take a slow method of obtaining willingly given DNA from you now and hopefully in the future than a batch now and never getting another in the future."
Entrapta walked over with her hair.
"Hold out your arm."
Tigra did so before she felt a prick.
20 damage taken!
Entrapta extracted the blood through her syringe before hopping away to a cabinet, while Tigra rubbed the area for a few seconds before her regeneration fixed it in two seconds.
"So, what did you want with that anyways? Not thinking of creating a clone of me, are you?"
"Hm? Interesting idea."
"Nope!" Tigra cut that idea off. "If you want my continued help with things like that, I do not want a clone of me running around. That is asking for all sorts of trouble."
"Oh well." Entrapta shrugged. "No, the main reason I wanted this was to find out just why you are so different from those of Etheria, even the amount of recollecting on past Magicat interactions suggest that your speed is an anomaly. I want to know if the reason is because of your DNA."
"As long as you let me know what you do with my DNA before you do it." Tigra told her rules.
Just then, the door opened and Catra walked in.
She did exactly what Tigra did, standing in place for a second at seeing all of the new stuff.
"Hey Catra! Can I get your DNA to get a clearer picture of how different Tigra is? It would help so much in having someone of the same race be able to differentiate the bases between you two."
"...What?" Catra asked Tigra.
"She wanted my DNA and I didn't care that much." Tigra shrugged. "Only conditions I had were no cloning and to inform me before she does any experiments with my blood."
Catra took a long breath before heaving out a sigh.
"After we look at the bot footage." Catra acquiesced.
"Oh right!" Entrapta exclaimed before bounding over to the couch and onto one of the cushions.
Catra and Tigra walked over to the couch before Tigra sat on the arm of the couch while Catra sat beside Entrapta, who sat in the middle.
Three screens flickered in front of them before they could see through the bots' cameras.
It showed a large amount of purple trees with frost covering them moving past the bots as they likely were moving to their designated areas.
While the trees still looked healthy, to Tigra at least, she could see a few small branches had fallen from the trees that had gathered around the bases.
Suddenly, several thick vines shot forward and wrapped around one of the bots. The vines lifted the bot into the air before slamming it to the side, causing one of the cameras to turn to static.
The rest of the bots had clear footage of the bot exploding against the ground. One camera then went out with the last image being Mermista, the Princess of Water, shooting a blast of water at one of the bots.
Another one was blasted by pink magic. Then a spike of ice through one of them. Before the last one caught an image of an arrow piercing just below the camera before an explosion occurred, knocking out the last bot.
"Wow. They fell apart in one hit? I can definitely make some improvements." Entrapta talked to herself.
"Well, these ones are meant for civilians and normal soldiers. They focus more on quantity than quality for these situations." Tigra informed, her tail swinging side to side lazily. "But we won't stop you from improving them."
"It doesn't really matter if they take them down in one hit right now." Catra cut in. "We can make about 1,000 of these a day. We'll just keep throwing them at the Woods until either we break through and create a path, or we continue distracting the Princesses with these while we can attack other locations."
"I have a better idea." Entrapta held her hand out before a hologram of the crystal Catra had taken from the Ruins appeared. "Give me two hours and I'll need you to test this idea out right after Tigra."
"What will I be doing?"
"Fighting the next generation of Horde Bot."
Tigra gained a grin at hearing that before hopping off the couch arm.
"Alright."
Tigra stretched with a light groan before turning back to the door.
"I'm going to be practicing magic. Call if you need me, alright?"
"About that…" Catra started, getting up.
Tigra turned to her and raised an eyebrow.
"Do you remember your offer a few days before you went out to Terra?"
"Before Terra…" Tigra muttered aloud, thinking back.
…
…
"OH!" Tigra exclaimed before appearing in front of Catra with a grin. "You sure?"
"While I'm…hesitant, I saw how much stronger it could make me. Hell, look what it's done for you."
Tigra hummed before nodding.
"Well, let's get started!"
"Now?"
Tigra grabbed her wrist.
"You wanted this." Tigra warned before she became surrounded in yellow lightning and the two of them vanished from the room.
Catra's yelp had been the last thing the duo heard.
"Do you know what that was about?" Scorpia asked.
"Hmm. Nope!"
Entrapta immediately jumped right back into inventing while Scorpia glanced back at the door.
________________________
Two forms suddenly appeared inside a study with one almost falling over onto the ground.
"Warning please." Catra grumbled, shaking herself to get rid of the strange feeling going through her.
"Best get used to it." Tigra suggested, walking over to a table with a couple of books laying around on top of it.
Tigra shifted a few of them around before picking one up.
"Here we go."
Tigra turned back to Catra and held out a book that held a flaming sword with an interestingly familiar guard.
"This contains my oldests spells at the moment." She started to explain. "I don't know what I plan to do with this, but it will be a good indicator to me if it is good enough to potentially teach someone in the future."
Catra opened the book before seeing a wall of text and a pictogram showing a singular flame above the palm of a hand with arrows going to a flame sitting above the tip of a finger, before leading to the last picture of holding a flame above every finger on a hand.
"As you can guess, this is my first spell: Flame."
"The spell you used a lot through the beginning of the Academy?"
"The exact same. While not perfect, I'll give a summary of how to use it. You've already felt magic flowing through you when I casted Haste on you so long ago." Tigra held out her hand. "I'd like to do it again to get you used to feeling magic until you can produce a flame above the palm of your hand."
"There's nothing that prevents me from using certain elements?"
Tigra glanced at her own wall of text.
*You've gained a student!*
Students - Catra
While students are learning under you, you will gain 1% Magic Control for every spell they master and 1 skill level for every skill they would have leveled up 5 times, should they have had this ability.
Current benefits for students: x2 EXP for H2H and Dash, 1.9x for Spells due to Magic Control
While teaching magic, your students can learn any spell that you have placed into a Magic Book, but they do have their own magical branches that work best for them.
Someone in the Kingdom of Snow may have a hard time with the Fire branch while having an easy time with the Ice branch.
…
"These are the basics for magic. While fire magic may not be the type for you down the road, you should be able to learn all of the spells that I have written down in that book."
Catra placed her hand in hers before giving her the go ahead.
Tigra used Haste on Catra, allowing a yellow glow to flow from Tigra's hand over to Catra's hand, then up her arm, through her body, until all of her had a dim glow.
"What you're feeling right now is my magic flowing through you. Specifically, your magic veins. While there is no biology for magic to flow through us, there are paths that magic seems to like to flow through."
"Yeah, it makes me want to run again."
"Don't." Tigra narrowed her eyes for once. "I am using this spell to only get you used to magic flowing through you. Once you have gotten used to it, you will try to redirect that feeling to one of your palms. Either one will work."
Tigra let go of her hand before holding each of her palms upwards, allowing a crimson flame to come to life above the palms.
"Eventually, you should be able to use it with both hands at once with ease. Right now, I'm using two spells at once with no repercussions thanks to my large amount of magic."
"What do you mean by large amount?"
"I have nearly twice the amount of magic from when we captured Sparkles. Which, had been roughly twice the amount I had when we graduated from the Academy. If I keep going at this rate, I'd likely have twice this much again at the end of this year." Tigra thought aloud.
"Really? I could grow that fast?"
"...Probably not. I am constantly using magic in some way. I use magic between my feet and the floor, to attack, to heal, to defend, to run, and recently for disguising myself." She listed off.
"The point is, while you won't grow as fast as me, you just need to find different ways to keep training the amount of magic that you can use at once. Thus, these beginner spells that help with controlling small amounts of magic before future spells focus on using more magic at once."
"Any other kinds of hints?"
"Magic is based in three categories from what I've noticed over the years: imagination, mentality, and intent. Imagination is what fuels magic into becoming whatever state it is. Be it a flame, spark, ice cube, light, and more. Imagination gives magic shape.
Intent controls the magic's output. If you intend for fire to act as a light and not harm something, the heat from the fire will be reduced to merely giving light or capable of burning through metal.
Lastly is mentality. It won't matter if you envision a spell and even know how strong the spell should be. Mentality is the how-to when it comes to magic. Mentality turns imagination into reality and gives a base for intent to affect. This is largely affected by your actual understanding of magic, such as how to direct it through you and out of your body."
Catra narrowed her eyes as she seemed to start to concentrate.
"You make it sound simple like that."
"This is magic, Cat." Tigra gave a light smile. "Very little is simple but it will make sense. Just like math."
Catra scrunched up her nose slightly. "You hated math."
"And you'll hate magic." Tigra bluntly told. "There's little science behind magic as it comes from things that can't be measured. As far as I know, the First Ones were the closest to truly understanding what magic is but forced it to work alongside their machines and not the other way around."
Catra groaned. "Which means a lot of trial and error."
Tigra nodded.
"While you're practicing that, I will be doing my own practice. And please, don't try to do more than the palm at the moment. I like my study not being on fire."
"Wait, you own this?" Catra looked around more.
"Yep. Since I've been out on the field more times than not, I can't really use my pay for anything. Thus, a better bedroom, a study to practice my non-destructive spells and paperwork, and my own training grounds. Kind of need one when my spells could destroy a training ground by accident if I go overboard." Tigra listed off.
"Won't it become a problem in the future when you do need that money?"
"Not for a long while, at least. I could come back to the Fright Zone without pay for about a year before I would have to actually start worrying about money."
Tigra shook her head lightly before focusing again.
"Back in the present, keep feeling the difference of having magic flowing through you."
Catra grumbled before seeming to focus on herself again.
Meanwhile, Tigra took a few steps away before conjuring Fire Dagger.
'Theoretically, a dagger is a very small sword. It has the blade, a handle, and some even have guards. So, couldn't I change the imagination bit to a dagger with a long blade and just make a sword?'
She focused on such a thought and watched as the blade wavered before slowly growing before trembling and going back into itself and returning back to a dagger.
Her eyes narrowed and performed the action again.
Instead of repeating, the blade extended but curved in the middle before shakily turning straight.
It essentially looked as if someone had made a sword extremely malleable and molded the blade around a round stone and kept it that way.
Tigra swung it to the side a few times before the blade broke.
It hovered in the air for a moment before a hand of ice clasped around the blade and it started to steam.
After a few seconds, the ice hand returned back to Tigra's furry hand.
'I got the length about right, but not the shape.' She acknowledged. 'Perhaps I need to have a design in mind and not just "long dagger."'
So, she dismissed the Fire Dagger and pulled out her tablet and went into the Horde's armory tab that lets Force Captains know what they had in the Horde while Force Generals are informed of that and how many.
After looking through 13 - 'why are there so many different swords!?' - different layouts, she found one that looked more her style.
It belonged to the Falchion family where its blade stood around 26 - 30 inches long, a handle of about 8 inches, and a small guard to prevent potential cutting of one's own fingers or during a crossing of blades.
So, she now had a sword in mind and focused on how she had created Fire Dagger in the first place.
'Imagine a handle about as long as my middle finger to the base of my palm. At the end of that handle, there will be a small guard to be long enough to block a blade but small enough that it won't get in the way. Finally, attached to the guard will be a blade about 2.5 feet [0.75 meter]. Combine them together at the guard and finish.'
Now that she had imagined how she wanted it, she needed to fuel it with mentality. Thanks to her usage of Fire Dagger and her high magic control, she could easily direct her magic to create something as simple as a Falchion.
Finally, came intent.
'The handle needs to be warm to prevent accidental pickup from someone else. The guard needs to be hot to potentially warp a blade that is in contact with it. The blade itself needs to be blazing to cut through metal in one slash. If it doesn't, it needs to be able to melt through it quickly.'
So, she channeled her magic and focused on the handle, feeling it become solid in her hand. Then she saw the guard slowly begin to form. Then the blade started forming with its sharp edged sides before coming to a point about 3 feet away from her.
New Spell Created!
[Fire Falchion LV 1 (0/200) - You have created a Falchion made of fire! With this, you will do (DEX*2.1+STR*2.3+INT*2.7)*Blade_Bonus in fire damage. Damage: 2685. MP: 150 to create. 25/m after.]
…
Tigra swung the falchion around slowly, getting used to its weight.
'A lot heavier than the dagger, but it deals a massive amount more than the dagger. Lord, it's only LV 1 and does 154 more damage than Fire Dagger.' Tigra analyzed while looking at the blade.
'The downside is that I won't be able to throw the Falchion as easily like I can the dagger and it is nearly 10x the amount a dagger costs.'
'But, I can now block attacks from She-Ra's sword instead of needing to be fast enough to not get hit.'
She stared at the flaming blade and ran her hand across it.
'The hilt is barely warm, which means it should burn if held by someone without fire resistance. The guard feels just a bit warmer, meaning that it will be hotter than most blades are meant to be in contact with.'
When she ran her hand across the actual blade, she raised an eyebrow unintentionally.
'It's hot. While not capable of actually burning me anymore, this would have burnt me instantly, even when I had LV 60 fire resistance.'
That is because that is what your intent was. You wanted a blade hot enough to cut through nearly anything and if not, capable of melting through it.
Thus, you wanted more power than what Fire Sword would have given you had you just used a skill point.
'So I can make spells stronger or weaker if I make them myself?'
Correct. Had you come up with Lightning Armor yourself, its limit could have been 7x to even 10x instead of the limited 5x. But since you used a point to learn it instantly, it's potential is limited until a certain trait is gained, from experience or from the shop.
As of now though, you have not met the requirements to acquire said trait.
'When or how would I reach the requirements?'
New Quest Created!
To Go Beyond Your Limits
Your power has told you that you can improve your spells that you have bought through some kind of trait. When asked how to acquire the trait, this quest was created.
Objective: Master 5 self created spells [0/5], create 10 spells [3/10], reach Level 70
Reward: [???] trait, 3 skill points
...
Tigra heard a crackling before she looked over and found herself blinking.
Catra held an orange flame above her palm while it seemed to reflect in her wide eyes. She held it in front of her face while Tigra walked back over.
"Congratulations, you've just learned your first spell."
"It…felt easy once I got what you meant by intent and mentality."
Tigra rolled her eyes gently as Catra hadn't looked away from the flame.
Tigra surrounded her right hand in ice before extinguishing the flame, getting a look of betrayal from Catra.
"Firstly, stop staring into flames that close. While it may not be burning you right now, it could still blind you if stared at for too long."
Tigra let go of her hand, letting a small stream of steam rise.
"Secondly, do it again."
Catra huffed with a light glare before refocusing on the task.
Now that she wasn't focused on her own spell, she looked at her clock on the wall and saw what she expected.
80 minutes had passed.
'Making and learning new spells the normal way takes quite a bit of time.' Tigra reminded herself.
After all, it took her about an hour just to make the Flame Arrow and Flame Dagger spells. Spells that were much more simple to imagine and design than a specific kind of sword that would fit her more than a long blade of metal.
She watched as a spark started in Catra's palm before slowing stopping Haste on Catra to see if she could do it without her spell as a crutch yet.
However, nothing seemed to have changed.
The small spark turned into a small flame before turning into a palm sized flame.
Catra gave her smirk up at Tigra who was giving her own smile.
"Alright. Once you can do that for 10 minutes straight, move on to trying on your fingertips. If you try too quickly, you could singe your fur." Tigra warned. "Follow the instructions in the book and you should be able to master the basics relatively quickly."
"Wait, you're letting me keep this?" She gestured towards the book.
"Why not? I'm thinking of making another book for only basics, then the next level, before stopping at manipulating the elements."
"What about this? This looks kind of personal."
"Oh, that's going to hold all of my spells eventually." Tigra waved off. "I'm only going to give that to certain kinds of people."
"Like what kind?"
Tigra glanced at her before giving a light smirk.
"Those I can trust without doubt."
Catra actually seemed slightly taken back by that.
"Besides, there's not much written in it just yet. Only the spells up to the point I fought Bolt the first time."
Which had been a small amount of her spells, seeing as she hadn't learned anything but fire, with the exception of Haste and Heal.
A buzz came from her tablet, drawing her attention.
"TIGRA! Come down to Training Area #19!"
"Well, it seems that Entrapta finished up her invention or whatever. Are you coming with me?"
"I've got nothing better to do today."
The two of them left the room, Catra having a tight grip on Tigra's Spellbook.
_______________________
The two of them walked into the training area before a voice came through the room.
"Tigra! Please take 7 and a half steps forward. Catra, I'll need you in the Observation room with us to not influence the data."
Catra looked at Tigra.
"Congratulations on being the lab rat."
Tigra gave a light jab to her shoulder.
"Congratulations on getting more homework. Try to master Flame within three weeks and I'll try to help you train more."
Catra scoffed, walking away with her tail swinging side to side.
Tigra smiled before following Entrapta's instructions.
"Alright, Test #1 for Emily's Kid Sister, shortened to EKS."
A section of the floor opened up before a bot appeared.
The bot stood up on three triangular shaped legs attached to a semi-circular body with a smaller semi-circle with a purple eye.
"Proceed to fight it as if you were an enemy but do not attack for 30 seconds. Preferably without magic at first."
'At first? Does she expect me to struggle against this?'
[EKS Age: 1.5 hours]
[LV: N/A REP: 0 [Neutral] ]
HP: 15,000/15,000
…
"And…Begin!"
The bot stared at her before the purple eye started to glow red.
A red blast of energy shot at Tigra, who jumped to the side before continuously jumping away to dodge the blasts.
Tigra had started to get bored quickly.
Until the red blasts were no longer where she was, but where she would land.
She grabbed onto the ground and pushed, changing her direction enough to continue evading it.
She ran towards it on all fours before sliding, avoiding the stab from one of the legs.
She continued to jump and move around it, starting to find it interesting.
'It can learn and adapt while a fight is happening.' Tigra analyzed.
The EKS continued to adapt before Entrapta's voice came about.
"Alright, you're clear to begin attacking with non-magical means."
Tigra crouched before dashing towards it with her 1080 DEX. She jumped at it, only for it to dodge out of the way.
"Phenomenal. It has adapted to her enough to recognize how quickly she can move and how she'll likely attack it."
Tigra narrowed her eyes before continuing towards it. It fired a few shots at her, only for her to do what she had yet to do.
Tank it.
The red beams slammed into her, yet she did not react physically and lunged at the bot, landing on top of it.
She dragged her hand across the top of it before holding her right hand in the shape of a point as her claws extended.
She shot it down into the EKS.
9775 * 0.8 = 7820 damage inflicted!
…
The EKS began to spark harshly before Tigra jumped back and stood in place, her back straight as she kept sight of the EKS.
"Entrapta! How much more punishment? I don't want to accidentally destroy something you made."
"Keep going until you think it is destroyed."
Tigra checked it.
HP: 8154/15,000
…
'What? It should have 7180 HP left.'
HP: 8186/15,000
…
"It's fixing itself." Tigra muttered to herself.
She watched as the sparks slowly started becoming less and less before it seemed to stop.
"You may now use magic attacks."
Tigra immediately used Fire Falchion and held it in her right hand.
"Ooo. New magical spell. Did you learn that recently or did you decide not to use it until now? Logically, it would make sense that you would have learned it recently but-"
Entrapta's voice suddenly cut off, as if someone muted her.
Tigra dashed forward before leaping into the air.
The EKS scanned her briefly before leaping to the side as her falchion slashed through the ground, leaving a scorch mark on the ground.
Tigra rolled before spinning in a circle and chucking the falchion towards the EKS.
It raised an arm to try and block it, but the blade went through the leg and stabbed into the body.
10,316 fire damage inflicted!
…
The EKS fell to the ground with several beeps as Tigra summoned another falchion before jumping into the air, once more.
This time, she landed on it and stabbed the blade into the center as the EKS finally stopped moving.
5319 damage inflicted.
EKS Defeated!
750 EXP gained!
H2H gained 7820 EXP
H2H leveled up! LV 186 → 187
Blade gained 15,000 EXP
Blade leveled up! LV 15 → 23
Due to reaching LV 20, STR and DEX increased by 1 each!
Fire Falchion gained 60,000 EXP!
Fire Falchion leveled up! LV 1 → 25
[Fire Falchion LV 25 (0/5000) - Damage: 3569 fire damage. MP costs: 119, 20 MP/min]
…
Tigra released the falchion as it slowly disappeared.
Once it was fully gone, it revealed melted metal and motherboards. Even if it could regenerate in a way that tech hadn't been able to before, it could do nothing if the main unit had been completely destroyed.
"How was that for a test, Entrapta?"
When she didn't hear anything, she grew confused.
"Are you muted or something?"
"Incredible!" A voice yelled next to her, making her jump. "There is so much data I acquired! How having strong metal will mean nothing if its melting point is low enough to interfere with the mainframes!"
Entrapta continued to speak mechanic where Tigra could barely understand her sentence before she had already moved on.
'Reminds me of when I had started to learn Lizardtongue.'
"So that's all she had to do?" Catra asked. "Just destroy the robot?"
"Yes." Entrapta nodded. "With this, I found the actual limits of how fast it can move, how fast it can adapt and learn, and how quickly the nanobots repair EKS."
"So, what now?"
"Now we show this to Hordak." Catra informed the two, really just Tigra, of them. "With this, we'll be able to show him how much we are already improving the Horde."
Tigra nodded before they walked off.
____________________
"With the Whispering Woods still frozen and the Princesses largely being distracted by the amount of bots we are throwing at them, we've been able to take more ground than we have been in the last half year in a month." Catra informed.
'Wow. Is it bad that we've changed the course of this war in barely a year of service?' Tigra couldn't help but wonder.
"You have not disappointed me, Second in Command. Clearly, I was wise to promote you."
Catra seemed to preen from the praise.
Until Hordak moved his gaze to Tigra.
"When will you be able to conquer more cities?" His tone seemed very different, as if he was looking for a mistake of some kind.
"As soon as I am given a place to take for the Horde."
She had been ready to go out for about two-three weeks but had refrained as she had not received a mission.
Hordak's narrowing eyes almost made her flinch.
"You are a Force General . You decide when to leave."
Tigra blinked.
"But since you have taken so long to decide, I've decided that tomorrow, you will be leading an army of 150 soldiers composed of 3 Force Commanders and their garrisons."
"Where to?"
"The city of Tyde. A city near the edge of Salineas and Horde territory over the last month."
"Very well, Lord Hordak."
As she prepared to leave, she noticed the new quest.
Quest Discovered!
Battle of Tyde
Lord Hordak has ordered you to take Tyde from Salineas after a month of accidental inactivity. It would be best to succeed after the accidental break.
Objective: Take Tyde
Hidden Objective: ???
Reward: 100 EXP per soldier surviving the battle, 25 EXP per enemy eliminated | ???