Policeman and the cat

27 - Frozen Jellies

Ian opened the doors just as Adrian's back hit the wall right next to him. Adrian coughed and stood up-- looking over at Jayden.

"This is pretty good," he said, walking over like nothing had happened and he had not just flown some ten meters away and into the wall.

Ian had two urges - see up close how that happened, and - close the door and go elsewhere. He followed the first one as Jayden asked - "Think it would work against a Clestromantis?" Ian had a feeling he had heard that name before, but he couldn't recall where.

"Nah," Adrian replied. "Its shell is way harder."

"Can we watch you spar?" Ian asked, just in case.

"Sure, but-- show me what you got first," Jayden said with a challenging smile.

Ian was pretty sure he would be no challenge whatsoever to Jayden, but that was not the point probably. The problem was that-- It was likely that the paws would come out if he felt pressured.

"I'm not very used to my body right now, is that fine?" Ian asked.

"What better way is there to get used to it than sparring, though?" Jayden asked.

Fair enough. Ian had his arms change into paws right away, that wouldn't be anything he could hide from his colleagues-- Only to block a punch by reflex a moment after. There was no warning signal, no notice.

The punch hurt, although it was a test no matter how Ian looked at it. He did not fly into the wall after all. The pain eased like it usually did, small damages took no time to be fixed.

"Your reflexes look alright," Jayden said. "Does it hurt?"

"No," Ian said. 

A mistake. 

The kick that came after hurt a lot and had him rolling a few times till he got on his feet, then another punch he barely blocked, but this one was made at a lower angle, Jayden's posture was not quite solid.

Ian pulled his paw back just a bit, shrunk his paws back into arms, to take ahold of Jayden's clothes, but Jayden too pushed his arm in front, following the motion and with a faint hint of a smile he threw Ian instead.

Ian felt it would be over as soon as his back hit the floor, but it was not - he had to block a kick while down and roll to avoid another one and there was nothing elegant or graceful about this-- he was running, rolling, scrambling around, blocking, trying to tackle Jayden and failing and so on for fifteen minutes till Adrian called for a pause.

"Got adjusted?" Jayden asked.

Now that he could pause-- "Yes." He was no longer thinking about his arms - they changed shape when they needed to block, reverted back when he needed to grab without him paying them any mind. "Thank you."

"If I got you right, you tried to capture me," Jayden checked. Which was right, so Ian nodded. "Why didn't you try draining my aether?" Adrian also seemed curious about that.

Biting him, huh? But there weren't any chances, if he couldn't properly grab him, biting him seemed unlikely-- If he was Nelly, then-- "I can't drain aether by touch alone yet, yesterday was the first time I could manage it well using my teeth, but biting you--"

"Yeah, not gonna give you a chance," Jayden said.

"I couldn't tell if regeneration or body strengthening," Adrian checked with Jayden.

"Regeneration," Jayden said. "Felt like well-trained normie on contact."

"If you want to keep your style of fighting, then you'll need body strengthening," Adrian said.