Alone in the Forest

Jessie had decided to head out of Death City for a while, stretch her legs and not have to be as paranoid about meisters. That said, this was near Death City, so Soul protect was on, just to prevent ranged detection. Regardless of that though, she wasn't being physically as disciplined as she was in the city itself. And as a result, her mutable form and nature was not something she was holding back. Do she was taking what might be a fairly unusual form in that while she was humanoid, she was also in a full covering of fur, and boasting the ears and tail of a ferret, not to mention slightly padded hands and feet. Garret was in an entirely human form, which boasted a height of 5 10, brown hair, and blue eyes. Garret was, naturally, Jessie's familiar, in that she was a witch, and he was, in his normal base form, an animal. The only magical ability he had was to transform into a human, and that perhaps he was smarter than any ferret could hope to be. Oh, and a normal ferret of his age would be quite elderly if not dead. But despite the fact that Garret was Jessie's familiar, and Jessie's pet, the scene simply didn't look that way at all. For Jessie was sitting down on a large rock in the forest, and Garret was busy stroking her fur, and playing with her tail in such a way that would imply the exact opposite was true. But that was typical when it came to Jessie. She was very changeable, and changed often. It was her nature to change her roll, her physical form, and her behavior to a degree. She was just that way, it was hard to pin her down to being a single thing or type of person, because she felt just as at home in this form as she was in her human form. And she could sleep just as soundly still in ferret form and think nothing of it. The wind blew, ruffling her fur into little wavelets as she considered what to do. With a sigh, she let down Soul Protect for a moment, and started murmuring to herself, and once again her form began to change as she shrunk and changed into a total ferret, perhaps a bit bigger than normal, but nothing very abnormal or weird. And with that done, she took the time to re-activate Soul Protect. It was worth the risk to expose herself to anyone who could sense a witches soul, for less than a minute, and get rid of her obviously un-natural half and half body. Anyone with soul perception now would find something fairly interesting, but less alarming than her prior form, which screamed magic. They mgiht perhaps see a human with an animalish soul, and an animal with a human soul (thanks to soul protect). Granted that would be weird, it wasn't as weird as her half human half ferret form she had been in a few seconds ago. For now she was entirely a ferret, and she curled up contentedly in Garret's lap as he set down on the rock. She issued a squeeking sound, and was quiet when he started petting her. Jessie was content, and it seemed to radiate out of her. Anyone who saw her would instantly tell the ferret in that man's lap was enjoying a good petting, and was quite content.

Meanwhile, Zane was training in the forest. He had brought maybe four sandbags all the way out here, and now he wasn't going to leave until each one was starting to fall apart. He wasn't wearing his usual, all covering attire. The only thing covering his upper body were his bandages, and he was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants to allow for more flexibility while kicking. He was wearing a pair of sneakers he had had for a while, and was currently working on his roundhouse kicks.

Jessie settled easily into a ferret form. For in total she had spent years in similar forms. Of course her coloration varied greatly, and she rarely boasted the same pattern twice, excepting a few cases that she had a particular fondness for a certain look. Sometimes her fur colors were downright freaky, involving off the wall colors like greens and blues and reds. However, being so close to Death City, Jessie was taking a more caution approach, with a largely pure white coloration, but with an odd chocolate brown mask similar to a raccoon, and "socks" on her paws reaching to the elbows/knees. Garret stood up slowly, giving Jessie more than enough time to roll over and climb up him, in a manner similar to a squirrel, untill she was riding on his shoulders. As for Garret, being in his human form, he wore simple blue jeans, and a white shirt, basic and simple, with simple white shoes on his feet. No one ever bothered to look at socks, so there was little need to mention those. He began to walk seemingly randomly through the forest. Perhaps it was just disliking being in one place for too long. Jessie wasn't sure, but she didn't mind. She liked the motion of riding on his shoulders in ferret form. Jessie stood and stuck her nose playfully in his ear, something he tended to do when riding her, just to play with him. But soon she started to hear odd sounds for the forest. She perked up, looking around trying to spot the sound. Garret meanwhile, changed directions to head towards the sound, whatever it was.

Zane had finished his roundhouse practice. He exhaled and sat down for a minute or two, drinking some water and re-wrapping his bandages. His break didn't last long though, and before long he was on his feet again. He wanted to practice something he had heard about in a lecture. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm his mind and focus on his own soul. He then delivered a palm strike to the sandbag in front of him, attempting to channel his soul wavelength through his palm.

Jessie continued to look around for the sound as Garret walked towards it. But soon the sound stopped for a bit. Regardless of that, Garret continued in the same direction, hoping to figure out what was going on. Jessie crossed over to his over shoulder and used his ear as a "hand"-hold to lift herself up so she could see better. But then there was another sound, much less noisy, but still in the same direction. Garret continued his heading and soon he and Jessie saw a rather interesting sight. A person with bandages over his upper body, and sweatpants on his legs was practicing. Garret stopped walking and examined the situation from a distance, thinking about what was going on here. It was probably a Meister. This was close to death city, and who else would be doing such physical training here? But if that was the case, the partner was missing. With a look back, she considered that he could just as likely be a weapon. Jessie resolved to assume he was a weapon, as if he was truly alone, that was the worst case situation. It was possible he was a Death-Scythe, or something similar, but she didn't think so. In the end, she needed to be careful. Jessie figeted, and crossed back to his other shoulder, still riding Garret. What would he do? She wasn't certain. It would be bad if she had to release soul protect for some reason. But with any luck at all he would not be able to guess anything odd was going on, other than a man walking through the forest with a ferret on his shoulders.

Zane inspected the hole he had blasted into the sandbag with a satisfied grin. This was good. He had been practicing channeling his soul wavelength to make up for his current lack of a weapon. This way, he would still be able to defend himself without one. He immediately set to work replacing the mutilated punching bag, hanging a stronger one in its place as an added challenge. Throwing a barrage of relatively normal punches, he relaxed his mind to prepare himself for trying the technique again, but this time in the form of a kick.