Guilty x Creatures Ch. 60

"Well hold on! Just hold on!" cried Mica as she held up her hands "You're right though! Mokai is my Master, so calling you both that is just going to be confusing!...And also, it'll take away from what he's doing for me if I don't call him that..."

Anton went still for a moment before he nodded in agreement and turned to fully face her.

"Fair enough, I can accept that." he said as he crossed his arms "But there's still the matter of keeping things fair here as well."

"...Okay. Then... How about I just call you boss or something?" offered Mica "That's basically what you are anyway. My boss, right?"

"Hm..." hummed Anton as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully "Yeah, alright, I suppose that works. Boss it is then."

"What!? Seriously!?" cried Fiona "But that's not fair! Why do I have to call you Master if she doesn't!"

"Because you are a guilty creature and calling me Master is part of your punishment." said Anton "And while she is guilty as well, working for me is her punishment. And calling me boss still fits within that framework."

"...Well, if it's just working for you, then I can do that too!" exclaimed Fiona "Seriously! I don't mind working for you if I can call you boss too. I will do anything you want if it means not having to call you Master anymore! Anything at all!"

"...You really hate having to call me Master, don't you?" asked Anton with a grin.

"More than anything..." whined Fiona as she wrapped her arms around her middle "You have no idea how embarrassing it is for me..."

Going quiet, Anton merely gazed at her as he contemplated the situation.

"...Please!" begged Fiona as she laid her ears down submissively "Pretty please!"

"Oh, alright fine..." he sighed "You can call me boss too if it's so much easier for you."

"Yes!" breathed Fiona as she balled her fists in triumph "Gods alive! You have no idea how much easier this is gonna be for me! This is a huge load off my mind..."

Chuckling, Anton shook his head and turned back to the cooking chicken.

"And what about you, Kianna?" he said as he began to flip each piece "Do you need to call me boss now too?"

"Nope." said Kianna as she crossed her arms and shook her head "I am perfectly fine with Master, thank you very much."

"Well alright then." smiled Anton as he nodded in acknowledgment "Good to hear."

"Glad we got that settled." said Mica as her eyes followed the flipping chicken pieces "So how much longer before dinners ready?"

"It'll be a little while still. Chicken takes a bit longer to cook than other meats do." said Anton "You've got enough time to go back to your exercises if you want."

"...Alright. Might as well get a few more reps in." said Mica as she stretched her arms up over her head "Call me when the foods ready, I guess."

"Sure thing." nodded Anton.

Coiling her tail against the ground, Mica used it as a natural spring to toss herself backwards through the air.

"...That is a seriously useful tail." mumbled Fiona as she watched Mica sail through the air and land on her feet on the other side of the yard "Wish I could just throw myself around like that..."

"...Actually, you can. Launching themselves into the air is something a dark elf like you can definitely do." chuckled Anton "Not quite as easily as Mica can, of course. But still close enough to compete with her at least."

"They can!? I mean, I can!?" questioned Fiona as she pointed her ears straight upwards "How!?"

"Give me a second to finish flipping these and I'll show you." said Anton as he expertly maneuvered the chicken around the grill.

Once satisfied that he could leave the pieces to cook on their own for a bit, he turned the heat down to a simmer and glanced at Fiona before nodding towards the yard.

"Would you like to join us, Kianna? Or would you rather sit this one out?" he called as he led the way out onto the grass.

"Nah, I'm good." said Kianna as she shifted back and forth on her pillow "I'll just watch from here."

"Alright, sounds good." said Anton as he shifted his head to the side to crack his neck "This will be mostly just explanation anyway. So you'll still be able to get the gist of it from there."

Twisting back and forth at the waist, Anton began to limber up with a bit of stretching before turning back to Fiona.

"Okay. Now, this is one of the more tricky things you can do with aura manipulation. I wouldn't call this a full on ability or anything, as there's no trigger behind it." he explained "Which that is also why it's so difficult to learn. As there's really no step by step instructions I can give you for this. All I can do is show you that this is possible for you to do, and you'll have to figure out how to actually do it on your own."

"...Okay?" said Fiona as she took a step back and looked him up and down "...So what are you doing?"

"Nothing yet." chuckled Anton as he himself took a step back as well "Take a few more steps back, and then I'll begin."

Completing his request, Fiona instinctively focused her aura around herself as she felt Anton flare his out widely into the space around them.

Blinking, the dark elf pointed her ears straight upwards in surprise as a thin, glowing orange-colored disc suddenly began to expand out from beneath Anton's feet and spread out into a three meter wide circle all around him.

"Pretty neat. Isn't it?" grinned Anton as he glanced around and found that both Mica and Kianna were now gawking at his disc as well "Can you tell what I'm doing, Fiona?"

"...Uh, yeah? I think so?" mumbled Fiona "You're igniting your aura with mana, and then focusing it into a big disc shape....Right?"

"You're halfway right." nodded Anton "What you're seeing is ignited mana... But it's not in a disc shape. In fact, it doesn't even have a shape at all."

"...Okay? Well it looks like a disc?" said Fiona as she creased her brow in contemplation "...But if it's not a disc, then what the Hell is it?"

"Let me show you." said Anton as he turned to Mica "Mica, can you come over here and give me a hand real quick, please."

"...Do I have to?" questioned Mica.

Anton gave her a lop sided grin as he cocked an eyebrow.

With a sigh, the kiochi tentatively walked up to the edge of the glowing circle before grimacing up at Anton.

"If you would, can you try to strike me with your tail, please." said Anton in a calm, nonchalant tone.

"...Seriously!? This again!?" cried Mica as her tail coiled nervously about behind her back.

Anton began to chuckle as he shook his head.

"You won't get in trouble for failing this time, I promise." he said around a smile "Just do your best to strike me, that's all I ask."

Hesitating for a moment, Mica sighed again before leveling her spade at Anton and striking out right at the center of his chest.

Mica, Fiona and Kianna all went wide eyed in surprise as Mica's spade was stopped by a thin pillar of orange glowing aura that had instantly risen up from out of the disc below and blocked her attack.

Pulling her spade back to herself, Mica watched the pillar quickly sink back down into the disc before looking up at Anton. Finding him staring back at her with a smug looking smile across his face, she narrowed her eyes and struck at him again but was immediately blocked this time as well by another pillar. Irritated now, the kiochi began to strike again and again in quick succession but was blocked each time by the never ending pillars as they instantaneously rose and fell.

"...How the Hell are you doing that?" asked Fiona as she watched Mica's attacks keep failing "...How did you ignite the aura, without making it solid?"

"That's the tricky part." said Anton "It technically is solid, I just haven't given it a shape to fully form into. So in a way, what you're seeing is the aura as if it was water that's trying to become ice. Any little slip in my focus and it'll freeze into whatever shape it's currently in. By manipulating it though, I can control its shape and even force it to switch back and forth between a fluid state, and a frozen one."

"...Okay, that's awesome!" exclaimed Fiona as her eyes stayed locked to the shifting aura "...But how are you doing that!?"

"Again, that's the tricky part." smiled Anton "I can't really explain it beyond saying I'm manipulating my aura by igniting it and not letting it solidify. You're going to have to figure out what I mean by doing it yourself. Which now that you know that this is something you can do, I'm sure you'll eventually get the hang of it. And with enough practice, you'll be able to do things like this..."

Mica and the dark elves all craned their necks upward as Anton suddenly rose up into the air atop a giant pillar. Once he was up high enough, his aura at the base of his pillar began to break apart, and as it did this Anton allowed it all to dissipate away into nothing. Hanging in midair now, he did several lazy back-flips as he fell, and before hitting the ground he re-formed his aura pillar and landed gently atop its pliable surface.

"I probably made that look a lot easier than it really is." he said as he stepped back onto the ground proper and dispelled his aura "Acing a landing like that isn't always so simple."

"Holy shit!" smiled Fiona "So you can just pop up into the air whenever you want then? Or do all kinds of crazy shit? It's that easy?"

"Well I really wouldn't call it easy. But sure, I suppose." said Anton as he made to move back to the grill "And yeah, you can do all kinds of things with that technique. Like for instance, if I wanted to, I could also launch myself, or even one of you, over the yard and into the pool from here."

"...Do it! Do it to Mica!" cried Fiona as she frantically pointed at the kiochi "Throw her in the pool! Hurry before she teleports away!"

"Fuck you, Fiona!" exclaimed Mica as she flipped the dark elf off.

Chuckling, Anton grabbed his tongs and began to flip the chicken pieces.

"Tell you what, Fiona. Since it'll be good exercise for her, and good practice for you..." he said as he glanced back over his shoulder "Learn how to do it yourself. And you have my permission to throw Mica around whenever you want to."

"What!? No! Don't tell her that!" cried Mica as Fiona immediately closed her eyes in focus and began to flare her aura as she then attempted to concentrate it below herself "Dammit! Now look! She's not gonna stop until she figures it out now!"

"Yes. And that's called "motivation", Mica." grinned Anton "Don't worry though, she'll have her chance to help you with some practice as well."

"...What do you mean?" questioned Mica and Fiona in unison.

"Well, Mica needs to get faster with her tail strikes." explained Anton "And I think having Fiona try to block them with her aura, like I was doing earlier, will be good practice for both of you."

"What the fuck!" cried Fiona as she pointed her ears straight upwards "You're gonna let her stab me!?"

"I'm going to let her try to, yes." said Anton "Whether or not she does is up to you of course."

"...Oh, I am so going to put so many holes in you!" breathed Mica as she smiled wickedly at Fiona and flicked her tail back and forth in an excited manner.

"Like Hell you are!" exclaimed Fiona "Your ass is getting thrown in the pool, sister!"

"...Master, I know you're trying to get results here." said Kianna as she watched both of her sisters begin to vigorously start practicing the very skills they were planning to use on each other "But sometimes I think you're also just a cruel, evil person..."

"Really? Only sometimes?" chuckled Anton as he continued to cook the chicken "Well, I guess I'll need to work on that then."