The Gamer Chapter 964 – Cat-abilities (Patreon)

They moved to a testing ground: an Illusion Barrier that was nothing but an empty green field. Thanks to the I.D. Gate, they only had to get on the roof to create such a space. The entire harem piled in there, even Lydia who joined them via teleportation. As luck would have it, she had scheduled to take the first blowjob shift of the day. Arriving half an hour earlier wasn’t too much to ask, even if she still grumbled about it.

“You’re welcome to start right now,” John joked, moving his hands to his zipper.

“We have a matter of import to observe, so keep it in your pants.” Lydia’s response was as straight-laced as usual. “There is a time and a place to tend to your insatiable needs, my love.”

“You are right there,” John said and looked over when a flash of light signalled Copernicus reverting to his corporeal form. The duo to be tested stood side by side. “Do you two have anything you want to show first, or should I go down the list of what comes to mind?”

“Ya got the gaming brain for this, tiger, so ya go ahead.”

“You are, indeed, a nerd,” Copernicus supported Rave’s assertion and proceeded to lick his paw. John found the motion oddly fascinating. Jaguar’s had thicker limbs than the common housecat. Perhaps this was because they had to swipe at more sturdy targets than birds or perhaps that was just a misconception because the common housecat was the lanky kid with rich parents of the animal kingdom. The jaguars were more like the Hell’s Angels, out to crack some skulls.

“Well, time to use my nerd brain the-“ John said, only to be interrupted by the sound of a smartphone ringing. Pulling it out of her pocket, Rave gave all of them an apologetic glance, before looking at the display. “Who is it?” the Gamer wanted to know. Since this was her private phone, she should have known who was calling her.

“Unknown number,” Rave responded and picked up. “Y’ello?... Oh, hey! ...No, ‘bit awkward right now, t-b-h.” The voice on the other side of the connection became loud enough that John could vaguely realize it as female. “No, no, no, it’s fine, really, we just gotta make it quick. Sorry, was kinda preoccupied yesterday, battling elementals and stuff… Hmm? ...Ja, that’d work… I’ve time around lunch, that work for you? ...Awesome… Ya sure ya want this more than the party?” Rave laughed at whatever the answer was. “We’ll see how awkward you are after I’m done with ya. Anyway, see ya later then. I’ll swing by your place… Have a nice one.” She put down her phone. “Guess who called me, boy and girl toys?”

“Lee.” John didn’t have to take more than one guess.

Rave knew better than to be disappointed at her boyfriend’s deductive abilities. Still, she asked, “How did ya get that?”

“You mentioned the party, I heard a female voice, she says she wasn’t interested, that’s about all I needed to narrow the results to one person,” John responded. “Interesting that she would call you already though.”

“Interesting indeed,” Rave hummed in a conspiratorial tone. “Wants me to show her the city.”

“Do you have time for that?” John wondered.

“I’ll make time. Gotta find out if Magoi’s daughter is a bit cray-cray or not.” Rave was about to slide the phone back into her pocket when she noticed John extending his hand.

“We’re about to do combat tests; unless you want me to buy you a new phone soon, you should give that to me,” he explained and caught the phone when Rave tossed it at him a moment later. “We should look into buying you a dimensional pocket.”

“Did the prices drop by now?” the Lightbearer wanted to know.

Aside from the process of tethering a dimensional pocket to a person requiring specifically trained dimension mages, it turned out that the supply of them had collapsed recently. Like many other things, this could be traced back to the death of the former Supreme Fateweaver. Local dimension mages would just have to attach what he had pre-fabricated. What supply had still existed had been bought up by the Divided Gates within a month, leaving the rest of the planet dry. Unless John was willing to pay an absolutely exorbitant amount of money, that was.

“No, but Magoi said he finally got someone who is talented in that department,” John responded and slid the phone into his pocket. “Big perk of ruling over an ever-growing organization is definitely having access to all kinds of talents. Anyway,” he clapped his hands, “Copernicus, let’s start with you. Feel like you can do anything new worth noting?”

“Aside from no longer being afraid a casual swipe of one of you monsters is going to annihilate my physical existence?” Copernicus meowed while brushing his head with the recently licked paw. “I don’t think so. My Unleash is still the same, I know that much instinctively. Otherwise…” He turned to the side and opened his maw. A casual golden laser beam shot from his maw and blew a hole in the dirt where it hit. It was a purely kinetic affair, with no smoulders to be seen. “…I suppose I have improved in the self-defence department.”

“…Not all that much, if I see that right,” John said, inspecting the crater. It was about a metre deep and one step across. Threatening, by any means, but not impressive when compared to his own spells and elementals. “How much power did you put into that? Was it a casual shot or properly charged?”

“Casual. Let’s repeat that,” Copernicus said, rising into a combat ready pose. Evidently, he was bothered by John’s assertion that his power hadn’t risen that much. Opening his maw, the solar jaguar fired a second laser.

Chunks of dirt and lawn exploded into the air, coming back down in a shower of brown and green. John stood close enough to the explosion that some of it covered him. Brushing the majority off his sleeves was one thing, but the tiny amount that had made their way under his collar was somewhat bothersome. When the Gamer gave Copernicus an annoyed glance, the feline just purred mockingly. Rather than pursue that feud, John inspected the second crater.

It was more respectable, about three times the depth and twice the width. “I’ll have to learn to focus that properly,” Copernicus remarked.

“I still think it’s somewhat weak,” John confessed. “Compared to how high your Spellpower is, it makes me think you should be able to do more, at least. I guess most of your proficiency remains in buffing up Jane?”

“That is what we should test next, then,” Copernicus responded and looked to his summoner. “Here, have my blessing,” his tone was almost bored as small lights flew from his fur. Five attached to each of her limbs, clustered around the ends, and then became invisible. “That’s already a change,” he noticed.

“Yeah, it used to be one per limb only,” Rave said and boxed the air a couple of times. When nothing happened, she raised her foot and stomped down on the ground. A shockwave of light expanded outwards from the impact, leaving the grass untouched but pushing against John’s legs when it reached him. By that point, it had petered out so much that it was only like a stream of water washing around his soles. “Hmmm… that’s the same old.”

“At least it looks that way,” John agreed. “Can you switch anything? Notice any mental buttons you can push?” By looking between the two of them, he made clear that this was a question for both summoner and elemental. Rave shook her head and looked over to Copernicus, who sat there a little longer.

The orbs of light around Rave’s limbs suddenly appeared again, flaring up with light. Their outline became pitch black, making the glow at the centre stand out that much more. “That should do something,” Copernicus remarked.

Rave stomped again, only for the usual light wave to remain unseen. “Doesn’t seem to do anything.”

“Oh no, it definitely does something,” Copernicus told her, his ears flicking. “I just received some mana.”

“Wha- alright, that changes things,” Rave looked at her hand where the light spheres had disappeared again. “So ya mean we can stop with the whole shtick where I have to deliberately be bad at using martial arts?”

“As long as that modus is active, it seems so,” Copernicus remarked. “Hold on…”

The spheres flared up again, the black wandering from the outside to the centre. Each speck of light was now a small eclipse. “Now what’s that gonna do?” Rave wondered and resumed her mistreatment of the floor. No shockwave, and judging by his silence, no mana for Copernicus either. “…Alright, now I’m getting mana,” the Lightbearer unravelled the mystery. “Gonna help if we’re fighting indoors.”

“That’s a non-dangerous method, right?” John wanted to know. There were many methods of mana regenerations, usually those that could be learned without specific talent, that had the drawback of requiring specific timing. Rave, for example, used a breathing technique to regenerate her mana. When she did so at the same time as casting magic, however, the cross-flow in her magic circuits caused unpleasant and downright dangerous issues. Nowadays, she also had her ability to absorb sun light to lean onto, which didn’t have that issue. Why, John couldn’t explain in detail, but it likely had something to do with Innate Abilities making it easier on the soul.

“Let’s put that to the test. Anybody up for being punched?” Rave asked.

“Sure, sounds fun,” Metra grinned and stepped forwards, “and don’t ya hold back on me, sis’!”

“I ain’t your sis, girl.”

“I ain’t your girl, friend.”

“I ain’t your friend, sis,” Rave shot back, completing the small circle.

“Well, you two look the part,” John chimed in. When Metra had formed her body, she had done so by applying her usual features to the image of John’s perfect woman. Because of this, Metra looked, in many ways, like the blonde, Middle Eastern half-sister of Rave. “Anyway, if you would go at each other.”

“Sure thing!” Rave shouted and suddenly charged forwards. Her aura ignited and she slammed her fist into Metra’s abs. Even the First of Wrath involuntarily folded at the impact, and a burst of blue energy flared up behind her back. “Hard enough for ya?” Rave asked.

“Aren’t we being cheeky?” Metra growled, an equally ecstatic and happy grin on her face. Her pronounced muscles bulged, very little of them hidden by the grey combination of crop-top and hotpants, when she raised her fist in a retaliatory punch. Rave backed off just in time to escape the fist. The two engaged in a dance of flying fists and swiping legs.

John watched them duke it out for a minute or so. If he had gotten the feeling that they were getting lost in the brawl, he would have stepped in. Before it came to that point, however, they stopped. Both sides executed a high-rise kick, aiming at the other’s head. Their legs clashed, the forces neutralizing each other.

If this had been a serious fight, Metra would have likely overpowered Rave in that instance, but that would be dependent on just how mad the ancient weapon was at that time. Also, on whether or not Rave used any techniques in the process. In this sparring instance, they just backed off and Rave extinguished her aura. “Does not interfere, no,” she said the obvious. If it had done damage to her body, they would have seen it by now.

“Alright, that’s three different effects so far: shockwaves, mana generation for Copernicus and mana generation for you,” John summarized. “Do we have a fourth one?” He looked expectantly to the cat, who nodded.

The lights showed again, the flare pushing the remaining light out and leaving completely black dots behind. Their outline was undefined and shifting, like a fuzzy object in the distance. Rave stomped again and nothing happened.

“Hmm,” John hummed, looked to for his hunch, “just by the previous pattern, this should be some kind of inversion of the shockwave power. My first guess would have been that things are pulled towards the impact point, but we would have seen an implosion in that case. Second guess it is then.” He gestured between Metra and Rave. “Continue your fight for a little while. Cappy, switch to the full light on my signal. I suspect that the black dots save the energy for a massive shockwave.”

The two battle-hungry women didn’t need more than one excuse to go back at throwing punches at each other. Rave spared herself the aura this time around and Metra kept her rage under control. That still made the berserker babe the physically superior fighter, her lack of magical power was balanced this way, but their difference wasn’t so high at that moment that Rave couldn’t keep up.

Grinning, laughing and bantering, they kept going at each other. ‘I really like my crazies, don’t I?’ John thought. While it wouldn’t be correct to say that all men enjoyed fisticuffs, the percentage in that half of the human population was definitely higher than the opposite one. Yet, John kept being attracted to women who had a knack for violence. To be fair, many of them weren’t exactly human.

Rave executed a somersault, flying over Metra’s punch and then bringing her heel down on the brown-skinned woman’s head. By simply advancing another step forward, the First of Wrath dodged that counter. In retaliation, she whirled around. Her outstretched leg clashed against Rave’s defensively raised arms.

That was when it happened. A circle of black manifested where their limbs met. Lines of darkness manifested all around and consolidated into that circle, only for it to vanish. John felt nothing where he stood, but he knew Metra’s speed well enough that she would have pulled away by now.

Rave seemed to be too surprised by what had happened to capitalize on it. They simply disengaged, giving John the opportunity to ask, “So, how did that feel, Mat?”

“Gravity magic,” was the short answer she had for him. “I felt heavier, but more specifically, I felt like I was being drawn towards the impact.”

“Alright, so I was closer with my first idea,” John hummed. “It pulls enemies, but it’s not a shockwave and the trigger is to take damage rather than dish it out. There seems to be some charging condition on it as well, given that it only triggered on that one attack…”

“Feels kinda weird that there is gravity magic in my fighting style,” Rave confessed.

“To be fair, that’s not your magic, it’s his,” John said and pointed to Copernicus, “and he did become an eclipse elemental, so that makes enough sense. If you would fight each other a little more so we can find out the charging condition?” he asked, and he received. A couple minutes later, they had worked out that the primary factor was simply time. After the switch to the black dots and between each activation was a minute. The intensity and range of the pull seemed to be static. “So we have four stances: push, pull, mana for Jane and mana for Cappy.”

“Not gonna lie, pull feels kinda useless,” Rave said. “All it does is minorly increase my window of opportunity for counterattacks. It triggering when I get hit is also kinda bad.”

“It’s niche, but better to have it than not,” John told her. “Is that all in the upgrade department?”

“It’s all I can show at the moment,” Copernicus meowed, thoughtfully. “I think I’ll be able to influence each light individually… but that requires training first.”

“Alright, since you said your Unleash is unchanged we can spare ourselves that… what about the cat form though? As I understand, that came about via Rave tapping into your elemental essence, so that could have changed somewhat?”

“Let’s see here…” Rave hummed and turned her attention inwards. “Definitely more to grasp at here than before…” she mumbled, explaining why she didn’t switch immediately. “…and here… we… go…” The cat ears sprouted from her head, her eyes changed from blue to copper, with slit pupils, and a pink cat tail made of light extended from above her perfect ass.

That last part was new.

“Feels meowr potent,” Rave said, randomly punching and kicking the air. “Dunno, nothing solid though.”

“…God, that’s adorable,” John said, watching Rave’s new tail wave around. The pink had a couple gold-tinged dots on it.

“Mhrrrmm?” Rave half hummed, half purred, and noticed her new appendage. “Aww, I finally got the full catgirl set, that’s nice,” she exclaimed, wagging her tail consciously now that she had noticed it. It was too short and it didn’t seem that she had detailed control over it, making it little more than a decoration. Still, it’s presence meant that something had changed. “I’ll tell ya if I learn something meowr,” Rave let everybody know, before deactivating that state again. “Think we got to go work now.”

Indeed, the pencil-pushing called.