104 Takara’s Bad Day

Jayde, sat on the grass waiting for Isha and Yinxin to finish up with their discussions. Hearing a faint rustling sound from a nearby bush, Jayde stood and walked over to the bush to investigate.

With her hand hovering over her sword, she cautiously parted the leaves. Hidden among the bushes was a small strange creature. Jayde was not sure what it was, it was black, its body was furless with huge bat-like ears. The face looked similar to a bat, but instead of a nose, it had two sharp bone-like horns. It had small beady eyes, and its mouth was filled with dagger-like teeth, with arthropod-like mandibles

It was bipedal, with long ape-like arms, although large bone like structures protruding from its elbow reaching above the creature's shoulders. The digits on its feet and hands were long talons.

Takara was pleased with his cute look, no female would be able to resist this, he thought. He had spent a long time thinking about all the creature he had seen in his long life, and the Hellbat was by far the cutest he had ever seen.

He was excited when he heard Jayde come over. Any second now. The bush leaves above him parted and a small face peered down at him. Blinking his beady eyes he started up at Jayde. (He had heard blinking made one cute.)

Oh yeah, Takara thought, got you now. This would be an instant kill. Sitting on his hind legs he waited for Jayde to pick him up. My lord is going to be pleased that I have succeeded so quickly, he thought proudly.

"F*ck what an ugly critter," Jayde muttered in disgust.

"Shoo!" Jayde hissed at the horrible creature.

"..."

Takara was shocked, was this female mental?

Standing up he wiggled his butt. Blinking his eyes. Look at me, aren't I cute?

Jayde saw the creature wriggling, was is preparing to pounce on her? Withdrawing her sword, she pointed it at the strange creature.

"Get the hell out of here," she ordered.

What the hell? Takara was confused.

Jayde raised her sword to strike the creature down.

Seeing Jayde raising her sword, Takara yelped. Turning he sprinted away. That damn female is crazy, he thought.

My liege, what did I ever do to you to deserve this punishment, he wailed silently.

Seeing the ugly critter running away, Jayde sheathed her sword and returned to Yinxin.

***

An hour later, Yinxin opened her eyes.

[Jayde I think I know what I have to do.]

[You do? Fantastic! So what must you do?]

[The earth showed me a spell that should work]

Jayde could hear some uncertainty in Yinxin voice.

[Yinxin what's wrong?] she asked sharply.

Yinxin knew she couldn't hide her apprehension from Jayde. It had taken quite some time for her to understand what Doha was trying to tell her. The spell shown was complex, and Yinxin was worried that she might have missed something important.

When weaving such a complicated spell, should she make even the slightest mistake, the backlash would be severe.

Yinxin revealed her misgivings to Jayde about the spell, as well as the consequences should anything go wrong.

Once Jayde found out how serious the situation was, she suggested that they wait to hear from Isha first before doing anything.

[It's not as though the world will end if we wait a couple more hours] Jayde stated.

Agreeing with Jayde assessment, the two of them discussed the spell in more detail. Jayde wanted to know exactly what the spell entailed.

***

Wrapped in an invisibility spell, Takara spied on the dragon and human from a nearby shrub. Watching Jayde laughing with the silver dragon, he came to the conclusion that Jayde must have no aesthetics.

Contacting one of his subordinates telepathically, he interrogated him about what sort of features would a human female find cute.

Canirr informed Takara, that all human females went crazy for creatures with big eyes. Since Canirr spent most of his time in the Radiant Realm, Takara figured he must know what he was talking about.

Happy with this intel, he tried to think of what creatures he knew that had big eyes. If human females loved big eyes, then the bigger the eyes the better. Proud of his logical deduction Takara decided that the Death Squirrel form would surely make him adorable.

After weaving his transformation spell, Takara shook his body. He really hated making himself this small, it was so uncomfortable.

Satisfied that he was now what humans would consider cute, Takara scampered out of the scrub that he had been hiding behind. He prepared to make his debut.

Hearing a scuffling noise Jayde looked up. Running towards her was the most horrifying creature she had ever seen.

It was dark grey with a squat body and an unusually long neck. It had short stubby legs and arms. Its face was something between a rabbit and some sort of monstrosity. It had a human-shaped nose, with large rabbit ears.

Its mouth was filled with razor-sharp teeth, which was dripping some sort of black substance. Its eyes were huge dark grey glassy orbs, with weird eyelids. It had large white whiskers and a tuff of white hair on its head.

Seeing that black stuff oozing from its mouth, Jayde immediately grabbed her bow, cocked an arrow and fired.

Takara had barely made it ten steps when he noticed Jayde grabbing her bow. Before he had time to even think, an arrow was flying its way directly for his forehead. Without a thought, Takara flashed away.

What the hell is up with this insane woman? Takara yelled silently.

Patting his chest, he breathed a sigh of relief, his poor little heart had nearly jumped right out of his chest.

He was really starting to think his liege was becoming senile, that crazy bloodthirsty woman did not need his protection. He damn well-needed protection from her!

***

What the f*ck is going with this forest today? Jayde thought. That is the second loathsome critter she had run into today.

[Jayde?]

Hearing the questioning tone in Yinxin voice. Jayde reassured her.

[It's nothing just some ugly pest]

[...]

[Jayde] Isha called.

[The trainers and I have found something that we think might work.]

[That's great Isha, Yinxin also managed to communicate with Doha and they have given her a complex spell — I wanted to check with you if know anything about this spell.]

[Ah ok, give me the spell and I will get Green to have a look at it]

Jayde connected with Yinxin and then relayed the whole spell to Isha.

[Wow, you weren't kidding about it being complex] Isha exclaimed.

[Let me discuss this with everyone and we will get back to you.]

[ah, ok]

Jayde was taken aback that Isha cut off communication so quickly.

Feeling hungry Jayde called Reiko back to have something to eat. Retrieving some barbecue from her spatial ring, she gave both Yinxin and Reiko the meat for lunch, while she ate the rest of the eleven wafer bread.

After lunch, Reiko returned to patrolling the perimeter, while Jinxin practiced the spell. Since Jayde now had earth magic, she practiced alongside Yinxin. They did not use any energy to weave the spell, as using Qi could cause a backlash, they just practiced the chanting and spell movements.

Yinxin marveled at how quickly Jayde picked up the spell elements, she really is a prodigy when it comes to magic, Yinxin thought.

***

While Jayde and Yinxin practiced the complex spell given to Yinxin. Takara was feeling depressed. This mission was more difficult than he thought. After much thought, Takara decided to reach out to his master, Kioshi.

Kioski was one of the wisest of the Lightning Panthera, he had mentored numerous young Lightning Panthera, who were Fahmjir elite guards. If anyone could help him with this dilemma it would be him.

Contacting Kioski, Takara explained his problem to him, after listening to everything, Kioski told Takara that Canirr wasn't wrong, humans did like eyes. Thinking seriously about his poor student's dilemma, Kioski suggested that maybe if the animal had more than two eyes, wouldn't that be more effective?

Takara thanked his master sincerely for his help. Hah, he was right, his master was the wisest of them all, Takara thought. Humans must find more eyes cuter. It only made sense if two eyes were cute then more eyes would increase the cuteness of a beast.

Running through a list of all creatures that had more than two eyes, Takara finally remembered there was one that had six eyes. Purrfect he purred to himself.

Thinking about the Centipede Cat, Takara nodded his head, of course, he gloated it was a feline, no wonder it was the cutest.

Weaving his spell, Takara shapeshifted into the Centipede Cat form. Ah much more comfortable he thought. Hey, these six eyes aren't bad.

Wow, so one eye can look left and the other right. That is great, yeah this form would make a cute but good protector for that battle crazy woman.

And with that thought, Takara confidentially sauntered into the clearing where Jayde and Yinxin were. His centipede tail lifted proudly in the air.

Takara had made it halfway through the clearing, without being shot at, or having Jayde trying to stab him. Snickering to himself he thought, just goes to show felines are superior.

[Gods, Jayde what kind of beast is THAT!]

Jayde was busy chanting the spell in her head when Yinxin exclamation echoed through her mind.

Jayde eyes popped open, looking around to see what beast had snuck on them.

F*ck not again!

Walking towards Yinxin and herself, was the weirdest animal Jayde had ever seen, it looked like a skinny bald cat, with huge bat ears. It was covered in strange dots lined up in stripes. It had chimpanzee type feet, and strange human-like hands, the strangest thing is it had six eyes, two huge eyes on top of its head, two eyes that were sitting just above its nose, and two where they should be.

The freakiest thing was its tail — it was a hissing centipede, that waved back and forth.

Jayde was so stunned — looking at this strange animal, that her jaw widened in shock.

Takara chortled with delight, tossing his head proudly. Oh yeah, he thought. I'm the Panthera.

Yinxin seeing this absurd creature getting closer to them, flicked her tail and swatted the creature.

Before Takara knew it, he was flying. Screaming in horror as he left the ground he flew over the treetops. Oh, gods, I feel sick, Takara thought as he looked down at the ground that seemed so far away.

Feeling dizzy and light-headed, Takara for the first time in his life experienced the feelings of vertigo. When he finally crashed landed on the ground. He lay there stunned. Part of him was so happy to finally be back on solid ground that he wanted to roll over and kiss the ground, but his body was too painful to move.

At that moment Takara came to a painful realization — his liege was clueless when it came to females, it was no wonder he did not have a mate.

--

Notes

Hellbat: https://ibb.co/58VNXpv

Death Squirrel: https://ibb.co/BK1q391

Centipede Cat: https://ibb.co/8cT4YsN

Lightning Panthera: https://ibb.co/5hLxYJq