Phantom's Tribute

Curse

          Phantom had fully recovered after a few days, and I had turned 16. I had a small birthday 'party'- if you could even call it that. Luckily, I didn't have to worry bout killing any monsters, as I had already dealt with that. Phantom and I had been sneaking out whenever possible to help him get better. Today, when we decided it was safe to leave, Asher came out of his room and confronted us.

          "I knew it! I finally caught you!" He walked over to us. We weren't worried- we knew we could trust him. "So.... can I come?" He asked. I smiled, and the three of us walked over to the back door. Asher and I walked out as Phantom teleported into a dark part of the forest. Once all met up, we made our way to the lake.

          Once we were there, Phantom slid into the water and Asher and I sat out on the grass. "Is he doing better?" Asher asked.

          "Very, he heals really quick actually!" I said as Phantom submerged himself deeper into the lake.

          "So what have you two been doing out here?" Asher said.

          "Just getting away from reality. I'm glad we don't have to worry about much right now. Oh! He learned this super cool trick the other day, I'll get him to do it again." I stood up and peered into the lake. It was silent- I couldn't see anything.

          I saw bubbles a few meters away and looked closer at them, but a big splash of water hit me in the face. I looked down to see a very amused Phantom looking up at me from in the water. I frowned, but the frown quickly turned into a smile as I shook the water out of my hair. "Ugh, Phantom... can you show Asher that trick you learned yesterday?" I sighed, still squeezing droplets of water out of my hair and clothes. Phantom laughed in an alien way and crawled out of the water, shaking himself off and getting even more water on me. "PHANTOM-" I stopped myself and let out a big sigh, along with an annoyed smile. He chuckled and made his way over to Asher.

          Phantom closed his eyes and stuck his back into the air like a cat, he was facing Asher but quickly turned around and as he did, black quills shot out of his frill and stuck into the tree behind Asher, who covered his head in instinct. I began laughing at Asher, who didn't look quite entertained. "So.. what do you think?" I asked, walking over to him, and squeezing out the last bits of water from my hair.

          "Well I thought I was going to be impaled by a shower of sharp quills, but that was impressive. What else can he do?" Asher said. I made my way over and sat down next to Phantom.

          "Not sure, really. We only know about the teleportation and the quill-shooting." I looked at the quills stuck deeply in the tree and got up, walking next to it. I pulled out a few quills and examined them. They were pitch black, but didn't seem to be poisonous. "We've been trying to find ways to get his powers to show up- but maybe he's just too young to find them all yet. Or maybe he just doesn't have any more...." I explained. "I've been watching him, and when running, he can get up to 50mph under 5 seconds!" I walked back over to Phantom, placing the quills in a plastic bag I had brought. "Also, judging by his claws he could probably climb on trees or just on cement!" I picked up one of his talons and inspected it- it was sharp, but not as sharp as Scaretta's I could tell. "Hey Phantom, can you climb to the top of that tree..?" I asked.

          Phantom nodded and trotted over, speeding up a little and then jumped on a branch sticking out of the tree. He reached up to another, dug his claws into it, and pulled himself up, a few times he pulled himself up with the trunk of the tree, and he repeated this over and over, sometimes jumping to another branch, until he was at the top of the tree-or at least as high as he could get. It was fascinating how quickly he moved for his size. He then made his way down and landed lightly on his feet. He trotted over to me and sat down. He was so cat-like it was insane. There's been a few times he's rubbed against corners- or even me- to get his scent on it. Then an idea came into my mind. "How high can you jump?" I asked.