Looking to her feet, Attie shifted her legs into the position that Sharifa was directing. She tried to memorize the position for future reference but she knew that she would have to write it down in her journal so as not to forget. Her eyes latched onto her teacher's feet as her movement slowed. The first attack hit her lightly on the shoulder. The second attack was clumsily blocked and hit the hand that held her stick. Attie managed to block the third attack and began to block more attacks with a few misses and mistakes here and there. Soon, the attacks seemed less random and she began seeing the patterns that Sharifa was trying to display. 

As one of the swings came near, Attie subconsciously took a step back to avoid it. The step was small but she had placed her foot onto a rock in an awkward position which caused her to lose her balance. With a little girlish shriek, she fell backwards and landed on her rear end. Without missing a beat, she sprang to her feet as though nothing happened, her face slightly pink with embarrassment. Although as she stood, her face flinched for a two seconds before returning to her calm appearance. 

"Sorry!" She exclaimed. 

Attie lifted her stick in a way that indicated she was ready to continue training. 

When she saw that Attie was about to fall, Sharifa didn’t try and stop her from falling. She watched Attie’s reaction instead. Attie landed on her butt but sprang up quickly like it didn’t happen, though the red in her cheeks and her apology made the wasp grin slightly. ”Nothing to be sorry about.” Shar replied as Attie settled back into her ready stance again.

Shar continued where she had left off with the basic moves, Attie was getting the pattern down Shar could see. While she continued to go through the motions Shar had a question or two for Attie. ”Why do you want to learn combat, Attie? What drives you want to learn this?” Shar asked flatly, this was still part of the training. Shar was making Attie think about the answers and Shar’s continued swings, as patterned and repeated as they were. ”Where do you come from, Attie?”

Attie was surprised a the sudden question as they had been silent until now. She concentrated on the swings and that made her response slower than normal. There was also the case of what she ought to say. Despite the fact that Attie just met this woman, she trusted her with information. Not that anything about Attie was important anyway. But there was the fear of what Sharifa might think of her. Yet, was there any harm in these thoughts?

"Well, fighting is a good skill to know. Last time that I was unable to fight, I was thrown off a cliff." Attie said, "But the main reason is curiosity. I have a strong curiosity burning within me. It's almost like a driving hunger that can only be filled until there isn't a drop of knowledge left. Even when I am dead, wherever I go, if I have a mind then I will be able to learn more." 

As she spoke, Attie began to switch from defensive mode to attack mode. Using her stick, she began swinging at Sharifa non stop. From left to right, right to left, up to bottom, bottom to up. Some of her attacks were a stabbing motion while others were swinging. All of her attacks appeared to be random. Even when her attacks failed, which they mostly would since she was inexperienced, she would attack relentlessly. Her behavior had gone from naive to ruthless in a matter of seconds due to her mind focusing on that curiosity. She could still feel it. That wonderful feeling that could drive her to do anything. Anything at all. Good or bad. 

Sharifa listened as Attie made her answers to the questions posed by the Wasp woman. She did also note the change in Attie as she went on the offensive suddenly, however Shar reacted and blocked the attacks as they came in. Shar smiled a bit when Attie mentioned that she wanted every drop of knowledge before her hunger would be sated. ”I can understand the want for knowledge, Attie.” Shar replied side stepping a jab and stepping back a step at the same time knocking Attie’s stick aside again. ”Truth be told, before the invasion that took place, I was sent to Canelux to scout ahead and gather intelligence to send back to the Hive so they could plan. It was my intelligence that got the invasion as far as it did, but circumstances hindered my ability to get the information back about the Gods having their full powers back that led to the failure of the invasion.” Shar explained. ”So, I can appreciate your hunger for knowledge, Attie, even if it comes from a different place.”

Sharifa knocked Attie’s stick away again and took a sudden step closer. She came right face to face, even if she had to look down at the human, with Attie, inside of defences. ”Now what?” Shar questioned before flipping her stick around in his hand to hold it in reverse and take a swing at Attie’s side.

Attie was secretly glad that Sharifa was blocking her. She didn't want to hurt the wasp as the lady appeared to be extremely kind. Kind people did not deserve pain. She had trust that Sharifa was able to handle everything that was thrown at her. While they battled, Attie listened intently to the words that the wasp lady was saying. The mention of an invasion confused her as she had been hidden away deep within Viren forest while the battle was going on, unaware of anything outside her forest or cave. But she had read enough about language and war to understand what a spy was or what Gods were. Her eyes lit up when she learned this information. 

"You were a spy?!" She exclaimed, "That is amazing!"

This was enough of a distraction for Sharifa to knock her stick out of her hands. As Sharifa approached, Attie's began to feel attacked, despite this just being a sparring match. Claws grew from her nails and her teeth grew into fangs. Her claws were the size of a bear's and were on both her feet and her hands. As the stick began to swing at her, Attie's animal senses overwhelmed her. She lunged at the stick and attempted to snatch it in her jaws. 

If she succeeded in capturing the stick then she would begin ripping it to shreds with her claws. Attie had little intention of attacking Sharifa but because the stick was going to hurt her, she was going to attack the stick. Her strength had increased due to the transformation and her strength was enough to be able to demolish the stick into tiny pieces. Attie's actions had little sense of malice or anger but rather an intent of self defense. 

When Attie’s attention was taken away from a moment when she heard that Sharifa had been a spy the Wasp took that opportunity to swat the stick from Attie’s hands. ”Don’t let yourself… get, distract… huh?” She stopped midsentence as seeing the changes that were happening to Attie as the claws grew. Sharifa blinked as the stick was taken from her hands and Attie started to rip it apart.

Sharifa waited for Attie to be finished before she cleared her throat with a slight grin. ”So, uh, you want to explain that?” She chuckled. ”Don’t worry, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and it doesn’t upset. I’m just curious is all on what kind of upbringing you had to allow you to do that is all, I had assumed you were human. Am I incorrect?” She asked while taking a seat on the ground, crossing her legs and folding her bottom arms in her lap, top arms crossed while she watched Attie in curiosity.

Attie was busy playing with the remaining pieces of the stick when Sharifa spoke again. Her eyes looked up to the wasp lady as Attie quickly realized what she had just done. But the lady hadn't seem too bothered by what had happened. Instead Sharifa appeared to be curious. Knowing how that burning curiosity felt, Attie decided that she would tell the lady all that she knew. Perhaps Sharifa knew something about this that could help explain it? 

"I assume I'm human." Attie explained, "But I don't really know. My parents left me in the forest as a baby, or at least that is what the villagers guessed. My adopted mother is….was a bear. She was as real of a mother to me as anybody so I never cared about who my birth parents were. They didn't raise me so they weren't important. "

She paused to sit down in a comfortable position, crossing her legs. 

"As for my powers….they didn't happen when I was a kid." Attie stated, "Ever since I turned eighteen, I've been growing claws and teeth. That's about all I know. It might have something to do with my bear mom or it might be something unrelated."