Alkalians (22 page)

The Ax Warrior shouts as he runs at
her, his massive weapon raised to sweep down through her. Instead
of the blade colliding with her, Lyn leaps over the ax and past
him, her front, right paw smacking his helmet and knocking him
off-balance before she slams her shoulder into him from behind,
sending him face-first to the ground with faint glows of green
damage to his armor.

Growling in anger from being
outmaneuvered, he gets back up and swings his blade around at her,
but she again leaps over it, tackles him, her paws bruising his
shoulders as she pinned him to the ground, and hops off him before
striding off a short distance away, letting him back up for more
attempts at hitting her.

***

“…
When transmuting an
object from one substance to another, the alchemist should be calm
and focused, without any distractions to take away from his
concentration. This insures that during the transmutation, he will
not create too many of or the wrong kind of particles, as well as
insuring he does not waste energy in the transmutation
process.”

Scribbling down notes as she read from
the book, Matt pauses and sits back in his chair, saying with a
sigh, “Okay, let’s take a break from that. My hand’s starting to
cramp.”

“
Alright, no problem.”
Amelia sets the book down on the table, observing how much he has
written as notes. “My, that is a lot of notes. Some of it looks
word-for-word from the textbook. Are you sure you need all of that
information?”

“
Eh, I would assume so. I
would rather have more information than I need, rather than coming
up short on some topic or detail.”

“
Ah, that makes sense.
Better to be safe, than sorry.”

Matt nods before the two sit there in
an awkward silence until he clears his throat. “Uh, Amelia, can I
ask you something?”

“
Sure, Matt, you can ask
me anything. What is it?”

“
Well, um, I’ve just heard
a rumor about you, and I, I don’t know whether to believe it or
not. I apologize if it will upset you, with me bringing it up, but
are you, oh, what was the word,
promiscuous
?”

Not responding for a moment, looking
back at Matt to make sure he is serious, Amelia sighs while leaning
back in her chair before replying, “Oh, I suppose that rumor has
some truth to it, but only to an extent. And no, it doesn’t upset
me, you bringing it up.”

Slightly shocked about how open she is
about it, Matt says, “Ah, okay. But, what do you mean?”

“
Well, Matt, yes, I do
have a reputation of sleeping around with other people on campus.
However, I’m not doing it with every random guy I meet. I believe
that only certain men, with a well-intending character or
rarely-alluring attraction, deserve to share pleasure with me. So,
it’s not like I’m carelessly giving myself out to others. It’s only
to those who I respect or am greatly interested in. Does that clear
things up?”

“
Uh, yeah, sure. I think.”
Suddenly becoming nervous, he then says, “Um, Amelia, if that’s the
case, there was, um, something else I wanted to ask
you.”

“
You want to sleep with
me, too?”

“
Oh no, no, of course not!
Er, I mean, ugh, it’s complicated!” Running his hands through his
hair in exasperation, Matt explains, “You see, before coming to
this college, I lived my whole life in rural isolation, away from
many people, and I haven’t gotten to know women, uh, intimately.
No, I mean, I don’t know how to have a relationship with them. I’m
so intimidated of them, shy of them, that I don’t know how to
approach them, to get closer to them, you know? And because of
that, I’ve never satisfied desires to see the, um, physical
features of them.”

Matt turns to face her directly, a
shameful look on his face. “So, what I’m asking is, could you
‘educate’ me about a woman’s anatomy, so that I won’t have a desire
to seek it from women close to me, like my roommate, Rose? I’ve
noticed how open you’ve been about this difficult subject, and I
think you’re the only woman I know who won’t mind doing it.” Then
groaning, he looks away from her. “Oh, what am I saying. I’m sorry,
Amelia, I have no right to be asking you that, I…”

“
No, don’t be sorry,
Matt.” Placing a friendly pat on his shoulder to have him look back
to her kind face, Amelia assures him, “I understand what you’re
going through, and I know you have good intentions, I could tell
that from the moment I first spoke with you. You’re just out of
your element around all of us women, that’s all. And you’re right,
I have been awfully open with you about this subject. In fact, you
may have noticed that I’ve been flirting with you.”

When Matt greatly blushes, she smiles
again and continues, “You have a good, innocent character about
you, Matt, and there’s something about you that attracts me to you.
Perhaps it’s the fact you’re a Dark Warrior. And that’s why…” To
Matt’s surprise, she then leans in close to him and kisses him on
the lips, sending a jolt of sensations through his body, and
finishes, “I would be glad to show you a woman’s anatomy, and
more.”

His eyes wide from the experience of
the kiss, an experience he has never had all his life, he gets out,
“Wow. Uh, I mean, thank you, Amelia, thank you so much. So, do you
remember when you told me you could show me you’re not wearing a
bra?”

“
Yes, I do recall
that.”

“
Well, um, could you, show
me that, now?”

“
Of course, Matt. I was
wondering when you would ask.” Standing up, Amelia walks away to
the door, locking it, and to the far side of the room by the large
window, pulling the curtains closed to phase out the sunlight and
leave the room in a shady purple hue. She turns back to Matt, a sly
smile on her face. “Let’s begin your ‘physical’ education.” Her
hands go to her vest, unclip it, and tug it off her, revealing her
bare chest to an awe-struck Matt as she strolls back to him and
sits down in his lap, her breasts inches away from Matt’s
face.

***

Being tackled to the ground for the
umpteenth time, the Ax Warrior’s chest armor and helmet are dented
and bruised with yellow wounds as Lyn, yet unscathed, hops off him
and trots away. Struggling back to his feet, he growls, “Curse you,
bitch! How about you stop messing around and actually fight
me?”

Lyn, with something like a grin across
her muzzle, sits on her haunches before sending up a howl, twisted
with a musical note as a spell is cast through it. In the next
moment, a lightning bolt jumps off her fur and strikes down the Ax
Warrior, nearly splitting his frame and reducing his wounds to red
in color.

As he falls over from the heavy
damage, he blinks from shock and disbelief before she’s on top of
him, bites at his throat, and rips it out. A red flash signals his
demorph, and she stands upon the man in his human form, her blue
eyes and white fangs gleaming down at him.

Looking up in fear at the Beast over
him until she steps off him and trots back to the other women, he
gets back to his feet, coughing a little, and runs back to the men,
shouting, “Wha-what are you all standing around for, yet!? Morph
and attack them, in the name of Cain, damn you!” The other six men,
flustered and nodding, morph and step forward. As all of them have
brown battle armor, three of them are armed with spears, two of
them have energy-shaped knives in each hand, and one of them has
his left arm molded into a shotgun.

One of the women cries out, “Hey, Lyn
defeated you, fair and square. How dare you go back on the
agreement!” As the other women step forward, ready to fight as
well, Lyn barks at them, her tone indicating for them to stay back.
Turning to her next opponents, as they enter a half-circle
formation before her, her wolf eyes glare back at them, her mouth
twisting into a snarl as she growls at them.

The fight starts when Lyn makes a
lunge towards the Shotgun Gunner, who reacts by firing a round at
her. The lunge is a feint as she leaps out of the way and instead
goes after a Knifeman, her paws knocking him to the ground and her
fangs ripping open his throat, wound energy spraying out of
him.

Before the rest of Cain’s men can
attack her in response, Lyn flashes in white light and disperses
into clones of herself, a whole wolf pack, which descend upon them
from all sides, dragging them down and biting ferociously into
them. While they desperately try getting the clones off them, they
don’t notice the real Lyn herself on the far side of them and
raising another howl. The spell she casts forms a swirling aura of
cold air around her, containing her within a small
blizzard.

Just as the men get rid of the clones
and are standing back up with miscellaneous green and yellow wounds
on them, Lyn strikes them from their exposed flank. Rushing upon
them like a sudden gale, she crashes into each of them with great
force, her fangs or claws piercing and tearing through them in
blooms of darkening wound energy while her cold aura stings or
slices at them with icy, hail-like shrapnel in her
passing.

The men all collapse on the ground,
each with deep red wounds on them, while Lyn turns around and
charges through them once more. Like a torpedo, the cold aura about
her propels her over them, its force slamming them and sending them
skipping across the ground, each one of them demorphing in
mid-air.

As the men stagger back onto their
feet, they group back together, fearfully eyeing the white Wolf yet
prowling near them, before one of them shouts, “You won’t get away
with this!” and they run away across the fields. As they become
dots in the distance, Lyn makes a final howl of victory before
demorphing, a satisfied smile on her face as she says back to her
girls, “Good job, ladies. I’m sure they’ll be thinking twice about
hanging around to bother Matt, from now on.”

***

Some time later, back in the college,
Matt walks through the halls alone on his way to the building’s
entrance with a funny look on his face, thinking back on the
“lesson” he had with Amelia. He recalls how incredible and
fascinating it was, what she had shown him. He had observed,
touched, and even, from her instructing, tasted her, front and
back. He is amazed how soft, warm, and inviting her flesh had been
to him, how something as simple as someone else’s skin and body was
so appealing and arousing to him.

They had also done a lot of kissing.
It was awkward for him at first, but eventually he had it down well
enough so that it was as simple, and steady, as breathing to him.
In fact, they had gotten so far into it that Matt was surprised
when Amelia stopped his hands at her waist, telling him with a
smile they would approach that subject later.

Matt reminds himself of the actual
purpose behind the lesson Amelia had given him. It was for
educating and enlightening, not obsessions or false conceptions. He
had to learn what a woman’s body looked like in bare flesh, and how
she, and especially he, would behave if they were near or in
contact, if he was ever going to be comfortable around a
woman.

Despite that, however, Matt can’t help
but feel excited and anxious for the next time he has a private
lesson in the study with her. This first time, he had seen and
experienced all of her upper body. The next time, she was going to
show him her lower body.

Matt passes by the doors to the gym
when they open and out steps Rose, in her usual clothing. His
roommate at their cabin, she is also the first woman he had seen
since Amelia’s lesson. Staring at her as images flash by in his
head, she notices him there and warmly greets him. “Oh, hey, Matt.
Coming back from that study with Lyn?”

“
Uh, yeah, that’s right.
Although, Lyn herself wasn’t there, the only one there was Amelia.
Lyn and the others were apparently patrolling the grounds,
protecting my good name or something.”

“
Oh. And, how did it
go?”

“
It was, um, fine. Yeah,
just fine! Simple studies, and I, I learned some new
things.”

“
Ah, well, that’s good.”
They resume walking towards the exit of the building together, Matt
slightly behind and beside her, as she asks, “What kind of studying
did you do?”

“
Oh, she helped me take
notes for alchemy. You know, because Professor Loske spends the
whole time lecturing and demonstrating in class, and
then
gives us the
homework at the end of class!”

Laughing, Rose says,
“Well, maybe you should do what I do, take notes
during
class, and then
you won’t have to do them after.”

“
Haha, yeah.” Deciding to
change subjects before she can ask anymore about his time with
Amelia, he asks her, “And how was your workout with Serpanz
today?”

“
Oh, it went alright. Some
strenuous cardio, warm-ups, exercises, the usual. Then we
sparred
without
our battle morphs. Turns out, she’s a great
grappler!”

Matt was glancing at Rose’s chest,
comparing her breast size to Amelia’s and finding hers are clearly
smaller, though still a fair enough size and roundness that he
couldn’t grip a whole one in his fist, when he blinks back to
paying attention and asks, “Um, pardon? What’s a
grappler?”