She Dodged A Panther
1471 Words
"You stole my beast! Give it back, you beastless b***h!"
The scream hit me before I could even catch my breath.
I was still on my knees on the cold marble floor of Cabildo hallway, my grey uniform soaked with sweat, my chest pulsing with that strange white light over my heart, my whole body shaking like I had been struck by lightning. The smoke claws had melted back into my shadow, but my hands still smoked faintly.
And Chloé Beaumont was no longer crying.
She was standing over me, her face twisted, ugly with rage, her beautiful black curls a mess, her uniform ripped at the shoulder. Her eyes were still dull brown, no gold, no panther glow, because her beast was still hiding deep inside her, too terrified of whatever had just come out of me to show itself.
But her human fury was more than enough.
"I said give it back!" She lunged, her real human nails aimed straight for my eyes, her claws trying to force their way out and failing. "You did some filthy Bayou trick! You dirty, slow, weak human trash! You think you can steal a Panther's power?"
I flinched. I could not move. My legs felt like water. Three months of being slammed into lockers had taught my body to freeze when Chloé came at me.
Finn moved faster.
"Don't touch her!"
His voice was a full wolf snarl now. He grabbed Chloé's wrist mid-air, inches from my face, and twisted. Not enough to break, but enough to make her gasp in pain. His white wolf aura exploded around him, cold and furious.
"Get your hands off me, Finn! She attacked me! She is a freak! Look what she did to my beast!" Chloé shrieked, trying to yank free, tears of rage now streaming. "She is supposed to be beastless! She is supposed to be nothing!"
Finn did not let go. His golden eyes flicked down to me, to my glowing chest, then back to Chloé, and his lip curled.
"She looks like nothing to you?"
Inside my skull, that cold, ancient system voice that only I could hear dinged again, sharp and annoyed, like it was offended on my behalf.
DING! REPEATED INSULT DETECTED! HOST LABELED WEAK AND SLOW AGAIN BY SAME A RANK TRASH PANTHER!
FIRST DEVOUR SKILL AUTO ACTIVATED! ANALYZING NEARBY PANTHER FEAR RESIDUE!
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE DEVOURED ONE PERCENT OF A RANK BLACK PANTHER AGILITY! SPEED INCREASED! REFLEX INCREASED!
NEW SKILL: PANTHER DODGE - TEN PERCENT MASTERY!
Heat shot through my ankles, up my calves, into my spine, like liquid lightning. My numb legs suddenly felt light. Too light. Like they were buzzing.
Chloé finally ripped her wrist free from Finn's grip and, blind with fury, she did what she always did when she was embarrassed. She swung. Hard. Open palm, aimed to slap me across the face so hard my head would hit the lockers again.
The same slap she had hit me with every single morning for three months. The slap I had never once been fast enough to avoid.
My body moved before my brain did.
One moment I was on my knees, frozen. The next, air whistled where my head had been.
I was standing.
No, not standing. I was two feet to the left, crouched low, my hand pressed against the cold floor for balance, my breath coming fast. I had not decided to move. My legs had just... moved. Like a panther's.
The slap hit nothing but air with a loud crack.
Silence.
Dead, absolute, heavy silence fell over the hallway again.
Chloé stared at her own hand, at the empty air where my face had been, her mouth open. Her eyes slowly, slowly slid to where I was now crouched.
Finn's head snapped toward me so fast his neck cracked. His wolf eyes went wide.
"What..." Chloé whispered, her voice shaking for a completely different reason now. "What did you just do? No human moves that fast. No beastless moves that fast."
I stared at my own hands, panting. My heart was racing, but not from fear. From shock. From a strange, electric tingling running up my spine.
I had dodged her. I, Marie-Jeanne,the girl everyone called slow, had just dodged an A rank panther's slap without even thinking.
The system chuckled inside my head. It was a dark, satisfied sound.
PATHETIC! SHE CALLS YOU SLOW BUT HER OWN SPEED IS TRASH! HOST'S CURRENT AGILITY: F RANK PLUS FIVE PERCENT! STILL TRASH! BUT LESS TRASH THAN BEFORE!
QUEST UPDATE: MAKE THEM BOW - NINETY PERCENT COMPLETE! ONE MORE BOW REQUIRED!
Chloé's face turned beet red. Humiliation burned hotter than fear now. She had been seen. On the floor. Her beast hiding. And now she had missed a slap in front of Finn.
"You... you think you are fast now? You think that rusty trick makes you one of us?" She snarled, and this time both her hands came up, claws finally, finally forcing their way out, black and sharp, even though her eyes stayed dull. She lunged at me again, not a slap this time, a full tackle, claws aimed for my throat. "I will kill you!"
"Finn, move!" I shouted without thinking.
I did not need him to move.
My new legs coiled and sprang. I ducked under her lunge, spun, and her own momentum sent her crashing face first into the locker where I had been leaning, with a loud, metallic bang that echoed through the whole academy.
She slid down, holding her bleeding nose, her eyes filled with tears of pain and pure disbelief.
I stood over her, breathing hard, my fists clenched, my shadow flickering behind me like it had claws again.
"I am not beastless," I whispered, my voice shaking, but loud enough for her to hear. "And I am not slow."
Finn stepped beside me, so close his shoulder brushed mine. He was not looking at Chloé on the floor. He was looking at me like he had never seen me before. Like he was seeing something that had been hidden under grey cloth.
"Marie-Jeanne," he said quietly, his voice rough. "Your eyes..."
"What about my eyes?"
"They are glowing."
I touched my cheek. My skin felt hot.
Before I could answer, heavy boots echoed down the hallway. Not one pair. Many.
A squad of Cabildo security, all in black with S Rank hound beasts, rounded the corner, led by Vice Principal Dubois, a woman with a cobra beast. Her tongue flicked as she sniffed the air, her eyes landing on the cracked marble, the melted lockers, the glowing light over my heart, and Chloé bleeding on the floor.
"What in the name of the founders happened here?" she hissed, her cobra hood flaring behind her. "We felt a God Rank pulse from three floors up! Principal Leon ordered immediate containment!"
Her hound guards spread out, surrounding me and Finn, their own beasts growling, but not daring to step too close to my flickering shadow.
Finn stepped fully in front of me, his white wolf fur rippling over his arms now, fully shifted to his half form. "She is with me. Touch her and you answer to the Lacroix Pack."
Vice Principal Dubois smiled, cold. "The Lacroix Pack does not own Cabildo, boy. And that girl..." She pointed a long, clawed finger at my chest, at the pulsing white light. "That girl just registered as an unknown SSS signature on the academy core. Do you know what that means? That means she is now property of the Council."
She snapped her fingers. "Take her to Rank Hall. Now. Principal Leon wants her tested before that light goes out."
Two hounds grabbed my arms. They were strong. B rank strong. I tried to pull away, but my new five percent agility was nothing against them.
Finn snarled, lunging, but three more guards blocked him.
"Marie-Jeanne!"
The system screamed inside my head, not cold now, but urgent, panicked.
DING! EXTREME DANGER! MULTIPLE S RANK BEASTS DETECTED! HOST AT TEN PERCENT AWAKENING CANNOT FIGHT!
EMERGENCY QUEST ISSUED! SURVIVE THE RANK TEST!
REWARD: SECOND AWAKENING! FAILURE: YOUR SSS CORE WILL BE RIPPED OUT!
They dragged me down the hallway toward the massive black doors of Rank Hall, where a machine that had measured every beast in New Orleans for a hundred years waited, humming.
Behind me, I heard Chloé's broken, venomous whisper as she wiped blood from her nose and stared after me with pure hate.
"Go ahead, test her... then they will see you are still nothing... just a weak, slow, beastless human with a cheap trick... and then Finn will finally be mine."
The black doors of Rank Hall groaned open in front of me, and from inside, a deep, ancient, dragon-like growl rolled out to meet me.
- Writer
