Horizon

Chapter 31

So much as happened since the plane landed in Seattle. Ian spent a lot of his time researching places in the forest where we'd have the solitude to practice in our anthro forms. That only took him a day, however. After one night in a hotel in downtown Seattle, we caught a shuttle bus outside of the city. We settled for a small cabin that was only a few hours away from civilization...and about twenty miles from the next human.

 We quickly settled into that cabin, and immediately started to train. Aside from the occasional run for groceries, and equipment, we kept to our little cabin. I decided that I would train with Ian...for obvious reasons. Thomas and Ian eventually started to hang out a lot more, which kind of made me sick. There couldn't be any distractions during training, however, so Thomas was assigned to Avery.

Avery and Ian proved to be more useful than I could imagine. Avery was an amazing cook, knew how to handle her weapons, and was as fit as ever. Ian was skilled with his computer, as well as with many different types of bladed weapons. There was plenty of things for them to learn. They were good at what they did, but they needed to be the best at everything...all of us did.

"How many days have we been here?" Ian would always asked.

My answer was always the same. "Doesn't matter. We're not ready yet."

The last time I ever said that was exactly four months since we had left the DC area.

I'm pretty sure that I was the only one that actually kept track of the amount of days that we were at the cabin...probably because I was starting to lose my mind. Life in the cabin wasn't too bad, but it was the most annoying thing for me. Being cooped up in a small space for four months, only going outside to get groceries and train, was a little unnerving. The rest of my time was spent planning for different potential scenarios for when we return. I felt like I was starting to lose my mind.

The next day, after waiting for four months, Ian and I woke up early in the morning to start our training. It started like any other morning for the two of us. We woke up and didn't eat breakfast. To start our training, we raced to the top of the mountain that we were resting on. On our way back down, we'd practice our stealth skills. Ian would hide somewhere downhill, and I'd hunt for him. That usually led to the main part of our training...combat.

Ian was exceptional when it came to two handed swords, just like I was. There was almost nothing I could teach him, until it came to real combat.

 "How are you doing that?" Ian asked, half-winded.

"How do I do what?" I inquired, faking a jab towards Ian with one of my daggers.

"When you strike with your daggers, it's like you're not just stabbing. Your blade follows my movements. I barely have time and space to evade...and even then...I feel like you're missing on purpose!" Ian exclaimed, putting his hands on his knees, and dropping his blades to the ground.

"Did you ever play video games?" I asked, making Ian turn his head sideways. "Yeah, but was does this have to do with-"

 "Shhh...lemme explain. The way that I think about my attacks, is like defeating a boss in a video game. You're not just going to throw everything you have at a boss, because then it will attack you for all of your health, right?"

 "Uh...yeah, right."

"Then what do you do? You're going to strike the boss flashes a weakness, or a blatantly open flaw...and they always do. That way, you can keep your health, and get the damage needed to defeat the boss. The rest is easy...all I have to do is dodge the boss until it flashes its weakness again. Hitting and running is the best tactic to defeat powerful video game bosses, and it's the same for real combat."