Chapter 7 – Playing Around

"Attack me."

"Brother, I don't think…"

"Don't make me repeat myself."

My brother looks at me with puppy eyes, but I keep the scowl on my face as I stare at him with a sharp gaze. He comes closer to me slowly and hesitant, raising his paw midway, making me annoyed by his lowliness as I narrow my eyes, the look finally managing to make him obey as he, sighing, slash the air with his paws.

"What are you doing? Is that difficult to aim at an unmoving target?"

He huffs at the taunt and this time hits me, claw marks appearing on my shoulder, and starting to leak blood.

Ding – Bleeding resistance 1

There! It worked! My brother by now had closed his eyes and kept going for it, moving his paws in the air and hitting nothing without aiming, so I had to put my paw on his forehead to stop this dumb creature from killing us both.

"Ok, ok, enough, I don't need you to kill me now." I just needed a slash to test things out, not a bloody murder attempt!

"Then why… why did you ask me to attack you?" He asks me with a sorry expression, trying to look tough by holding in his whines and sobs.

"I was testing a theory out, ok? So we can become stronger."

"Is… Is that so? How?"

I lick my wounds before continuing. "Apparently we can gain abilities by pushing your limits."

"How so?" He looks at me, confuse, turning his face sideways, making his pointy ears flop to the side as he lets his tongue out to rapidly breathe in after all that sudden exercise.

"Well, for example, we can only learn how to swim by going in the water and trying until we get it. The same way we can only learn how to speak by trying it out."

"What does that have to do with me attacking you?"

"Because my body learned that it needs to be sturdier. Now I have bleeding resistance, which means next time I won't bleed as much or none at all."

"Hm… I think I understand."

"Now, can you show me your Fire Armor? For some reason you have it and I don't" Probably because he is more focused on magic, perhaps he will learn those easier than I.

"Uhm." He nods.

It has been three days since he got injured, and only sleeping and eating made great amends to his wounds. I was, on the contrary, very tired, having to hunt for both of us, but gain Fatigue Resistance 1 and Hunger Resistance 1.

That's where my suspicions started to grow.

My brother stands, seemly focusing, and in one moment there is only a black Doberman, in the next is a dark silhouette on fire, burning up with a red flame from the shoulder blades to the back, coming from between the fur as if they are strips over his pelt. So… he just puts himself on fire? It doesn't seem like a proper armor to me, it may protect from some attacks and hurt back at the same time but there are other creatures immune to fire as well; and I wouldn't be naïve and think that we are the only ones that can evolve by try and error.

Ok, my turn. I try to visualize it, to copy, to light myself on the fire, but it didn't work on me for some reason.

"How do you do it? What do you think when you are casting it?" My brother, already back to normal, answers:

"I just think that I need to protect myself, that's all."

"When did you learn that?"

"After the attack." He completes, pointing at his shoulder, with some fur still missing from the bite.

Form of protection? Maybe because for me it doesn't look like an armor? Or doesn't really make me feel protected… Then what would make me feel like that? The scales that mother had? Sure, but only when we mature we can change into our Hell Form. So how…

Maybe I'm thinking wrongly about it. My brother went for the simplest way of protection, but fire has its flaws and other creatures could trespass it as well. Then how about… shadow? Not been seen is far better protection then been a fire beacon.

"Shadow Veil."

The words came naturally as my shadow grows, literally, spiraling up my paws and legs, and then I was completely cover in blackness, a shadowy figure that absorbed the light and did not let an inch of my presence pass through. My brother jumps from the spot, trotting my way with a happy expression on his snout.

"Oh my! That's soooo cool brother!!! I can't even see you! But you still smell." He putts the paw over his nose.

I snort at that, taking the veil off. The smell thing could be a problem, but it seems like stealth is the most suited evolution for me.

"Ha-ha. Just because you brought this up, today we are going to the river to wash away the mud and dry blood."

"Then what brother? What are we going to do? Mother will never find us if we go too far."

Walking out of the cave, I keep my pace, focus on the objective, brushing his words aside. I didn't want to bring his hopes down, and call me a coward, but I just say:

"Mother has a great sense of smell, she will be fine, but we need to keep moving, the humans know where we are and we need to become stronger quickly."

He nods at that, lost in thought. I stop and look him in the eye.

"We will be fine brother, as long we stick together. Didn't we hunt a cow down on our own? We just need to keep training, then everything will become easier in with time, kay?"

He doesn't answer, but we resume our walk. As we move I keep thinking; we are made of fire and shadow, so probably we cannot learn magic opposite to those elements, such as light and water, but I wonder if we can increase the resistance to those? Furthermore, fire and shadow have their weakness; fire depends on its strength, otherwise even earth can win against it, but shadow has only two, fire and light, but for us only light, proving to be more useful, even though there will always be a shadow even in the brightest place hm...

Hm… So at least we can try to get the resistance up right? I don't feel that it will be a pleasant experience, considering that to get resistance from bleeding you need to bleed…

We finally arrive at the river, a little waterfall smoothly running over the rocks. My dumb brother runs and makes a cannonball – more like a belly fall - and water goes all over my face. He starts biting the little waves he made on the water, patting his paws to stay afloat. Sigh, such a child.

(Author – But you have the same age though~ ~)

I enter calmly, rasping my claws on the stones under the water and raising dust with each step, staying over the side of the river where I could keep standing, appearing to ignore my dumb brother, but once he gets close enough I burst fire on my paws and throw water at him, making him go under the big wave my explosion and movement made.

I start laughing once he cames back to the surface, his expression showing how he felt betrayed, but once he sees me snorting at him he narrows his eyes in challenge.

"You…!"

He starts swimming quicker in my direction, like a lizard trying to walk, and that makes me want to provoke him more. I let a stream of fire hit the water, making a fog cover all our surrounding. Once we cannot see anything I used my veil and sneak behind him, diving, and once I'm close enough of him I bite his paw and pull him inside the water.

Surprised he almost swallows water from his mouth, but once he sees me he throws a fireball at me, underwater!

Shit, his Fire Ball is stronger than mine, retreat!

Once above water he keeps aiming at me, and I keep diving out of his reach. Once I'm far away from him, I let my head go out of the water only to show my tongue at him.

This time he snort, but soon he starts laughing.

"Big brother, you weren't supposed to be the mature one here? You're breaking my world view."

"What, I can have some fun too, and provoking you sounds too tempting to let it pass."

We play a little longer, earning swimming skills, but once we are done and tired out we rest under the sunlight. Laying there I start to think about how we can get water resistance, or any elemental resistance for that matter.

Not swimming, or diving… Maybe trying to keep a fire underwater? Like I said, the fire can be stronger than all other elements, if he is hot enough even ice would melt to lava… them… if I can keep a fire under those circumstances should increase both my attack and resistance, right?

Now that I think about it, can we survive lava? I mean, our Fire Resistance is level 5, is not that high if you think about it… should increase that too, though that will be easy with our concept of playing; which always involved some fire-balls here and there.

Things to do and think another day, hm.

Because, tonight, we hunt once more.