Chapter 22: Chapter 20: Hunting

Once Lilith finished her story, Siph stood up, stretching a little. “Well, that’s…certainly something.” She said. “But I suppose the circumstances around a new Perfect Chimera can’t be anything but unusual. Really though, all this does is strengthen my conviction; we’re going to have to train you up more. You’re a target right now, and I won’t stand for that. On your feet, we’re starting now.”

Lilith stood, giving her mother a curious glance. “So, what are we doing, then?”

“Hunting.” Siph replied. “Shift into your dragon form, I want to teach you everything I can about how to handle yourself like that. I may not know how to fight as a humanoid, but I can at least train you in this regard.”

Lilith focused, and after a moment found herself on all fours. While she couldn’t see most of her body, she could see that her legs were covered in lustrous green scales the same shade as Siph’s.

“Aww, you’re so cute!” Siph squealed, throwing her arms around Lilith’s neck. “You’re like…like…the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

That was another thing Lilith noticed – Siph’s dragon form was the size of a large house, but Lilith’s clearly wasn’t, she was…probably about the size of a horse from what she was able to tell.

“This is…different.” Lilith said, shaking a leg experimentally. “I’ll be honest, I never expected to know what it’s like to be a quadruped, but…well, it’s not as odd as I was expecting.”

“That’s magic for you, I felt the same way when I first took a humanoid form.” Siph said, letting go of Lilith and stepping back. A moment later two large wings burst from her back, and she gave Lilith a smile. “Alright, I’m going to take you out hunting now.” She said. “I would use my dragon from, but in this environment it’s a lot harder to chase things down if they decide to hide, so being humanoid sends less things running.”

“But what about me?” Lilith asked. “I’m kind of a dragon too right now.”

Siph laughed. “A baby dragon. You’re smaller than a bunch of other stuff that flies around out here. You’re not going to make things too scared of you, even though they probably should be. It’s mostly size that gets things running.” She paused. “Well, gets anything worth catching running, that is.”

She led Lilith to the entrance of the cave, turning around right before they reached the exit. “Go ahead and take off, I’ll catch up and help you look for something, alright?”

Lilith nodded, taking a moment to flex her wings and make sure they worked like her usual pair before taking off into the sky.

A few moments later Siph was beside her, smiling hugely. This is great! She said telepathically. I’ve always wanted to take my kid out hunting! Let me know if you see anything big, I’ll be keeping an eye out as well, but it never hurts to have another person looking.

It took them another fifteen minutes or so before Siph stopped Lilith. Down there, to your left. You see that big cat?

Lilith tried her best to slow down, but her body wasn’t built for hovering in place, so she ended up circling around instead, looking for the cat. Eventually, she found it. Alright, I see it, what now?

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Swoop down, melt it with some acid, and then if it’s still moving fly back up and wait for it to die. These things can cover themselves with electricity and shoot bolts of lightning, so don’t engage for too long. Just go down and then immediately come back up. Don’t worry if you don’t get it on the first try, I’ll be right here to make sure it can’t hurt you.

Got it. Lilith took a moment to psyche herself up, then shot down towards the cat, letting out a stream of acid as she descended.

The cat looked up at her as the acid rained down…several feet to its left. Lilith didn’t waste time, immediately heading back up as electricity crackled along some protrusions on its back and a bolt of lightning speared out into the sky just behind Lilith.

It didn’t have much time to do anything else, though, as a focused lance of fire speared through its skull, Siph landing next to it and cleanly slicing its head off with a partially-transformed hand. Alright, it’s safe to land. She said. It’s dead. Oh, uh, right, in the future, don’t land until I say it’s safe. Things out here don’t…die like you’re used to. A lot of the time they have abilities that let them play dead and try to hurt you if you’re not careful.

Lilith landed next to her, giving a dejected look at the acid that was starting to eat into the ground beside them. “I…really messed that up.” She said. “Sorry.”

Siph laughed, reaching up and patting Lilith’s head reassuringly. “Don’t be. You did better than me when I first tried to hit something at that speed. It’s not easy to do, and I didn’t expect you to hit the thing on your first try.”

Lilith reached out with a claw to pick the cat up, but Siph swatted it was a hand, causing Lilith to take the claw back. “Aren’t we going to like…bring this back for food?”

“No.” Siph said. “You’re going to use Assimilate on this one. We’ll catch another to eat, but the focus right now is on getting you stronger.”

“Alright.” Lilith said, using Eldritch Abomination to sprout a fleshy appendage from a foreleg, spearing it out towards the corpse and activating Assimilate. She had never used it before, so she wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but the whole process was relatively clean and painless. The corpse just sort of…flowed into her with a sensation sort of like being hit by running water.

And then it was over, and there was a window in front of her. There were the standard physical enhancements she had come to expect from getting new abilities and some stuff that helped her sneak around, but the only really interesting thing was the cat’s electric ability.

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