"Hey, Scathach!" I yelled as loud as the puppet body allowed me with Cernunnos standing at my side at the end of the bridge. "I'm here! Come out!"
The gates of the large castle opened and from within came the Queen of the Land of Shadows. Walking forward, she casted a curious glance at Cernunnos but returned her attention to me.
"I expected you'd take longer, honestly," she confessed, crossing her arms. "I thought you would be lost, but I suppose you had a guide. You didn't let him do your test for you, did you?"
I scoffed. "Please, you would know the minute I try to cheat."
"Fair point," Scathach nodded before turning to Cernunnos. "And what are YOU doing here again?" She asked in an almost dead tone.
"I'm just here to check on you like usual-nunnos!" Cernunnos stated with an upbeat tone. "How have you been?"
Scathach stared at him for a few seconds before shaking her head with a sigh. "You fool. That kindness of yours will cost you your life," she groaned.
"Hehe," Cernunnos chuckled and he comically waved his large arms around, almost hitting me. "You didn't say it would be by you, or that you hate my visits! Well, you're okay, so see-nunnos you later!" He turned around began leaving. "Bye Zack, I'll try to visit!"
"Take care!" I waved at Cernunnos as he walked away, and when he was gone, I turned to Scathach with a smile. "He's weird for a god. In a good way."
"A fluffy fool that let's his heart decide for him is all he is," Scathach tried to make it sound ominous, but the fact she added 'fluffy' ruined that.
"Well, now that I made it here, can you watch over my puppet body for a while?" I asked.
"What?" Scathach looked at me in confusion.
I didn't hear a 'no', "Great! Thanks!"
With that, I left my puppet body, causing it to drop, and returned to my real body which was in Nature's Law this whole time.
As soon as I opened my non existing eyes, I stood up and yelled. "Oh finally!"
Groaning, I stretched my back while pushing it with my arms, hearing more than a few cracks. The cracks were from the wood itself.
I obviously didn't feel anything like stress or relief in my real body. But, that's exactly why I was MENTALLY relieved. Because I'm back to not feeling anything.
I turned my arm into metal and created a saw. With that saw, I actually started sawing off my other arm, and I loved the fact I didn't feel a thing!
"Ah, that's the stuff!" I just watched as my arm fell on the ground and I grew a new one. Holding the saw again, I began sawing into my back, using it like a back scratcher. "I can't believe other Elementals pick human forms by choice! That felt so WRONG!"
It was like being forced into wearing a very itchy sweater for a long time and finally taking it off. At least that the closest thing I can describe it to.
I thought that spending a lot of time in my puppet body like that would actually get me used to the feeling, but it didn't. No matter how much time passed, it seems to STILL feel wrong.
I'm probably the closest Elemental to humans thought-process-wise, but it keeps feeling like I was never meant to have a body of flesh and blood.
It's like I was literally made to be just... elements.
"Maybe I should have taken up Ainzel's offer to research my origin," I groaned as I finished sawing off body parts and threw the saw away. "Meh, what's done is done," I shrugged as I created a lounge for me and sat down on it. "For now, I'll just relax on finally being me again. I'll come back to Scathach when I feel like it.
Alright, I'm ready to- oof!"
As soon as I moved my consciousness to my puppet body, someone kicked me in the gut. The kick was strong enough to break a rip or two on a normal human, Obviously, there was one person that would do that.
I held my stomach and rolled over while glaring at Scathach, "What the hell was that for?!"
"What student leaves their teacher as soon as they reached class?" She countered with her own glare, her hands at her waist.
"The kind that earned his break," Zack replied, standing up and dusting himself.
"I never said you earned your break," Scathach's glare didn't falter.
"And I never asked for your approval of a break, so we're even," Zack replied with a shrug.
Scathach's eye twitched. Taking a deep breath she reached forward... and began pulling my ear like a parent scolding their child!
"Ow ow ow! Hey!" I cried out but Scathach didn't care.
"Clearly I will have to teach you manners alongside how to fight. Even Setanta wasn't this disrespectful!" Now she also sounded like a parent scolding their child alongside looking like one.
"Are you kidding me! I'm older than you! You're the one who should respect me!" I cried in protest.
"You are still a guest and a student! And you have been nothing but disrespectful as both!" She replied. With that, Scathach began pulling me by the ear into her castle.
After she dragged me into the courtyard of her castle, she gave me a pole with weights on each end and made me swing it in several forms.
"Again!" She barked at me.
"I already know how to fight!" I said to her but started swinging nonetheless.
"Fighting to survive is not the same as fighting like a warrior!" She yelled at me, summoning a red spear and hurling it to nearly impale my feet when I went out of form. "You still don't have an actual style of fighting! Watching you is like watching a wild bear pretend their a trained warrior!"
"Who's fault is that!" I yelled back. She's the one that had me survive on my own after teaching me the basics!
"Yours! I taught you the basics! You should have used them as foundation to create your own style! Not just use them to know when to swing and when not to!"
Okay, I guess she's right that I should have worked on what she taught me, but still.
Scathach kept working me well, the puppet body actually to the bone and when I was done with the pole, she gave me different weapons.
She gave me fake swords with weights on the blade, she gave me knives, she gave me another pole but with one end not having weights so I can balance it on my own, and she even gave me a lance.
After all that weapon training, she had me balance myself while carrying a log... on a collection of poles... with the ground covered in spikes.
"Balance is everything!" Scathach cried out. "If you lose balance even for a second during battle, it can cost you your life!"
"I know you're being serious, but you sound like you're reciting some Haiku right now," I groaned, holding the log over my shoulders while standing on a pole with each foot.
After all that was done, the final lesson for today was a spar. I held my sword while Scathach was... bare-handed.
I charged at her with my sword... only to find myself on my back with my blade in her hands now and pointing it to my neck.
"Your stance was disgusting to look at," she actually gagged for a second and threw my sword besides me. "Again! And this time, try not to cheat by showing me something as ugly as that form just now!"
She's really going at it with stance and balance. I mean,
as a spear user who focuses on speed, I guess I can understand why she's so focused on the balance and stance parts of my training.
But still...
The rest of the time was spent with Scathach thoroughly kicking my puppet body's ass. When she deemed it 'enough', which wasn't for a while, she finally decided to give me a break.
And with that... I finished my FIRST day in this hell-hole.
I have the urge to go back to my real body again but I know this will make things worse in the long run, so I'd rather not risk it.
You call this a stance?! Are you trying to mock me!?"
"Woman, you have a problem!" I yelled at Scathach as she barked orders at my training.
This has been the last few months for me, basically. Scathach was hell-bent on beating stances and proper fighting style into me. According to her, I already know what it's like to fight to survive, now I have to learn how to 'fight to fight', as she called it.
From various fighting styles to fighting situations.
From weights to chains. From cold to hot environment. She threw everything at me while yelling her lungs out.
Did that actually make me give her the proper respect she wanted?
"Do another three hundred strikes!"
"Okay, okay!"
"What was that?
"I said okay, woman!"
"That's 'teacher' to you!"
"Screw you!" Not in the slightest.
If Gil couldn't beat respect into me, what the hell made Scathach think she can do it?
Today, I was laying in her courtyard, face down and covered in sweat from Scathach making me do the same strikes over and over with weights tied into my arms and legs. My training sword lay besides me.
"Wow, she's really working you to the bone-nunnos," I flipped myself over at the sound of a familiar voice and looked up to see Cernunnos looking down at me.
"Hey, Cernunnos," I greeted. He's been paying a visit every few weeks or so.
"How have you been?" He asked me and I deadpanned at him.
"What do you think? You just said she's working me to the bone."
"Yeah, but that fatigue doesn't go to your real body, does it?" He asked and I didn't have a comeback for that.
"By the way, speaking of bodies," I groaned as I painfully managed to stand up and face him. "You said you can't take a huma form because your the god of Beasts, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, aren't humans in a sense are a kind of 'beast'? Even if they're hairless, that should-"
"Oh, that's a total load of crap," Cernunnos cut me off with a wave of his hand. "We gods fed that stuff-nos to humans to make ourselves-nos seem superior and all that."
The entire area fell into silence. I just stared at the big furry god for a few seconds before finally finding the mental strength to speak again. "What?"
"Humans didn't come from Beasts, that's just ridiculous-nos," Cernunnos shook his head. "Some
primates did evolve into humans, but humanity existed before that. Your old enough-nos, I'm sure you've heard legends on how humans were made by gods."
I mean... he's not wrong. A lot of myths have their own version on where humanity came from, and all those stories say that humans were... well, created AS humans.
"So... how much of those legends is exactly true?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Pretty much all of it," Cernunnos shrugged his
shoulders. "After the first humans were created by The One, lots of gods tried to recreate-nos that and some Primates evolved into humans after imitating them long enough. I'm surprised-nos you didn't already know."
'The One'? Is he talking about the Abrahamic God? I know for a fact they're real considering the story of Solomon states they are, but I think this is the first time someone outright mentioned them to me.
And I guess that story makes sense. It also explains why Primate Murderer was made. If I was Gaia and every pantheon on me started trying to create their own humanity, I'd make something to keep their numbers in check, too.
"Well, I never really bothered to research the details of
humanity's origin," I replied to Cernunnos after
thinking on what he told me. "Anyway, how have you been? You've wanted to tell me about your priestess last time?"
"Oh yes!" Cernunnos perked up as he remembered mentioning that in his last visit. He held his hands close to the marks on his chest and started looking giddy. "My priestess-nos is the sweetest, kindest, soul ever! I bet all the other gods-nos are jealous!"
Cernunnos spent the rest of the day talking about his priestess. After that, I spent a few more months training on the puppet body with Scathach.
I got used to most fighting styles, I even figured out how to use Magical Energy, which I didn't even know I had. I don't use Mage-craft, but Primordial Runes have that covered.
Speaking of Runes, I REALLY enjoyed when Scathach tried to see if she knows something about Runes that I don't, only for that plan to backfire badly.
She claimed that the training next day was harsher for no reason but she is as good of an actress as she is at being reasonable.
And finally, we reached the final part of my training. I stood in the field in front of Scathach as she crossed her arms. Behind her was large blanket that covered the ground.
"Today marks the end of your training," she stared, obviously having said the same speech before to her previous students. "You've worked long and hard for this moment. Of course, you have a reward for you. My beloved red spear had already been given to another student, and while I can give you a downgraded copy, I believe you deserve better."
Scathach turned around, took hold of the blanket, and removed it dramatically, revealing a collection of all kinds of weapons. Swords, spears, bows and arrows, clubs, and everything in between. It was easy to see none of them was actually a normal weapon however, each of them had a unique look.
"These are the most powerful weapons that I've gathered through the years," Scathach stated while motioning to the field. "Pick one, and its yours."
I stared at the field for a few seconds... before snorting.
"What was that?" Scathach glared at me.
"You call these weapons?" I asked, motioning to collection she offered.
"Do you think you can do better?"
I don't know how the smile I gave her looked, but judging by the fact she actually looked a bit off, it was obviously devilish enough to make her regret that question.
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Title :- One with Nature
All credits to XanaShadow
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