Tom's head was in the clouds.
He wasn't quite sure where he was or why he was there. His muddled brain wouldn't allow him to focus on such trivial concerns. Soft, powdery earth cushioned his back, sweat cooled on his skin and Tom felt none of it. His thoughts floated listlessly, focusing on nothing and everything at once. His eyes however, were opened wide, his focus off in the distance. A voice in the back of his head told him that he needed to get up, that there was something important that he was forgetting. But for the moment, he seemed content to stare up at the sky.
He was sure that he'd never seen anything quite like it. Great fluffy masses of clouds drifted lazily across his vision. It reminded him of a painting. Like visiting the art galleries as a child and looking at the masterworks of great painters. He could have sworn that he could see every brushstroke. The pale blue color of the sky was like looking out at the ocean, expanding endlessly out to the edges of the world. Great masses of clouds drifted across the sky, like great continents across an endless sea. It all seemed so far away and yet so close. Looking up at that great landmass, he must seem like a giant. If he could only reach his hand out; he was sure he could touch it.
Soft blue gave way to the darker colors of rain soaked thunderheads. A storm was coming. Even his sluggish brain recognized that. The sky was still blue but it was clear it wouldn't be for much longer. The clouds were darkening as they swallowed up the sunshine streaming through the breaks in the cloud cover.
A shadow fell on him as a female figure stepped into his vision, blocking one of the last patches of sunshine and creating a halo of light around her body. It casted her features in shadow, hiding her identity from him. Tom's brain struggled to put the pieces together. She seemed to familiar. Wasn't he supposed to be doing something right now?
Finally, his eyes adjusted to the changing light as the face of Aresta came into focus
"Get up. The lesson isn't over yet."
Tom remembered to breathe.
He took in a ragged breath as wonderful oxygen returned to his lungs. He rolled over onto his side and coughed into the powdery dirt as everything came rushing back to him. The fight. The explosion. Tom rose to a sitting position, his ears still ringing from the explosion that sent him to his back. Stars danced in his vision as he started to get a handle over himself again.
Aresta stood over him, bouncing a fireball in the palm of one clawed hand, a smug expression on her face. That's right, he thought, combat lessons.
"Had enough little Tommy boy, want to call it a day?" Aresta said, in a mocking tone.
"Fuck that." He said. A touch of defiance and irritation creeping into his tone.
Tom stood up on shaky legs before getting his balance under him. He cursed the muggy, humid weather as he wiped sweat from his brow. His shirt was sticky against his damp skin. Even as the sunshine vanished, heat still radiated off the ground. A mocking reminder that the promised reprieve of rain had yet to arrive. The heat right before the rain was always the worst part of summer rain storms.
Muggy, hot and sticky, he thought, as he surveyed his surroundings.
They were in a rock quarry on the outskirts of town, in the midst of a combat lesson. Although, Tom wouldn't quite call it a lesson. Aresta would have to be teaching him something for it to qualify as a lesson. He wasn't sure trying to stay alive as she threw fireballs at him qualified as a lesson plan.
Aresta launched another fireball at him before he had a chance to fully regain his breath. He saw it coming and stepped to the side, allowing the ball of reddish flame to soar past him and impact the cliff face behind him.
"Enough fucking around. Defend yourself." She barked.
Tom squared his shoulders with the fiery demon. Aresta was in her demon form. Leathery wings and pale red skin, contrasted with bright pink hair and piercing eyes that glowed slightly in the dying light. He forced his muscles to unclench as he felt the flow of magic down the nerve endings of his arms. His fingertips tingled with energy, unformed spells itching to be used.
"Begi-." Tom barely had time to get a shield up before the blast hit him. He reached out with his senses. He imagined his magic flowing out into the form of a barrier in front of him. A dome of bluish light appeared just a few inches in front of his outstretched arms. A column of fire about a foot-wide hit dead center of his shield. As it came in contact with his magic it spread out across the curvature of his shield. Tom clenched his teeth as he forced more magic into the spell. The flames never touched his skin and yet he felt the impact as a physical force against his body.
Just as quickly as the attack began, it ended. Tom had to stop himself from sagging over in exhaustion as the flow of energy to his shield ceased.
"You're holding back, what are you scared of?"
"I'm not scared." He yelled before going on the offensive.
He threw a short arc of electricity at Aresta. His offensive magic was still to dispersed and inaccurate to be of any real threat to her. She avoided the attack with a single beat of her leathery wings, which carried her only a few feet out of his range.
Aresta laughed at his attempt at an attack. Tom let out a frustrated grunt. He could taste the electricity in the air for all the good that it did. They'd been at it for a few hours with much the same effect. Tom barely fighting off Aresta's attacks, while trying to launch his own ineffective counterattacks.
"You can't honestly expect to be the master of succubi if you can't even land a single blow."
Aresta looked over at where he stood some 15 feet away and gazed at him with a sharp look. Tom didn't understand why she seemed so angry. It wasn't that long ago that he was just a virgin geek. He thought that he was progressing nicely. Especially when you consider that a few months ago, he would have considered getting a girl's number to be a major coup de grace.
"Or maybe you're not interested in becoming a master at all. Maybe, all you want to be is Shyira's little pet."
Tom raised his eyebrows at that. "I'm not-"
"Isn't that all that you are," Aresta said, ignoring his reply, "Shyira's little pet?"
"I. Am. Not. Shyira's. Pet." He said, gritting his teeth.
"Oh no? Ever wonder why your shield is blue?"
That gave Tom pause, but he wasn't about to allow Aresta to see it. Whatever, he thought, I'll show her who's the pet.
"Let's go!" He yelled back.
Aresta raised her clawed hands to ready another blast of energy. Tom didn't give her the chance. He stepped forward into a dead sprint towards the demonic seductress, his shoes kicking up soft, powdery earth as he went.
Aresta's eyes widened slightly at his charge. It was clear to him that he'd done something she wasn't expecting. Aresta was hardly the type of demon to backpedal in order to buy herself some distance. Instead, she gave him a wolfish smile as she hunched her shoulders and readied her spell with a new sense of determination. Tom was more than half way too her now and Aresta had finally gathered the necessary energy and honed in on him.
"Aer'omura!" She yelled. Rather than send another column of fire at him, she decided to stop his charge dead in his tracks. She sent a blast of compressed air heading his way with an audible whoosh.
Tom threw his arms out in front of him and channeled energy, yet again, into the bluish done of his shield. Only this time he angled the shield down. When Aresta's blast of air hit, it was deflected down into the powdery silt. A cloud of dust shot up 20 feet in every direction. It went from clear, to dust storm in a matter of seconds.
Tom dug his shoes into the dirt as he stumbled forward, his forward momentum thrown off balance by the clash of energy. Still he was moving forward. He just couldn't see anything with the giant cloud of rock dust now obscuring his vision.
He went in the direction he last saw Aresta standing and just hoped that he wouldn't sail past her. She came into a focus a split second before he slammed into her. Tom latched onto her upper body, his head smashing into her petite breasts. He allowed his momentum to carry the two of them to the ground in a confused tangle of feet and wings. Aresta struggled, but Tom had come down at a much better angle and he soon found himself on top. Aresta lay on her back, with Tom kneeling right above her. His legs were to the sides of her hips, with both of his hands to the side of her head. The position allowed the pair to look into each other's eyes.
"I got you," he said breathless, a stupid grin on his face.
Aresta stared at him. Her lips subtly partied as she gazed into his eyes. Her muscles slowly relaxed after their fight. Her demeanor was a mirror image of the day they met, when she fought with Shyira and submitted to her. This is it, he thought, it's just like Shyira said. Tom's eyes fell to the pink lip gloss coating her perfectly kissable lips. The look was a little girlish for someone trying to imitate a college student, but Tom liked it. It reminded him of the endless years of his school life. Of all of those years of stealing looks at girls he couldn't have, daydreaming about high school romances he never got to experience. He momentarily forgot where he was as the weight of his memories, of his longing for something different, settled over him. He was transfixed with those lips as he leaned in for a kiss.
Aresta's punch connected with the side of Tom's jaw. Stars exploded in his vision. She took advantage of his stunned state to shift Tom's balance and extract herself from him. He recovered enough to grab her foot as she tried to scramble away. Aresta tripped and fell to the ground once again. Using his grip on her ankle, Tom used his arms to pull himself back on top of her.
"Bitch." He said suddenly angry.
"I'm not Shyira. I'm not so easily wooed. If you want me you've got to take me."
Fine have it your way, he thought.
The two of them rolled around on the ground, caught in a frantic struggle of limbs and claws. Just when it seemed that one of them had the upper hand, the other would find some new sense of balance or leverage to put the other on their back.
Tom was getting tired. He recognized the familiar burn of extended use of his muscles, without break or some sort of reprieve from heavy use. Despite the strange increase of his strength of late, he was finding that he simply didn't have the stamina to keep up the fight for much longer. His muscles were tight with the increased blood flow. He felt great, better than he'd felt in a long time, but still sensed that the end was near. The wall of exhaustion was fast approaching and he seemed powerless to come up with a way of ending the fight before he smashed into it.
Aresta used his momentary lapse in concentration to take the upper hand once again. She used her leathery wings as leverage against the ground. She turned a lunge of her upper body into a roll that ended with Tom on his back is a weak position.
In desperation, Tom grabbed onto the only thing within his reach, Aresta's pointed black tail. With a yelp, her demeanor changed in an instant. The fight drained out of her muscles. Her breathing became heavier as a flush to match her red hair crept up her pale cheeks.
Aresta's shredded clothes proved little more than a hindrance to him. He ripped her bottoms off with one hand, while careful to keep the other clasped around her tail. He gave the appendage a cautious squeeze, which produced a soft, breathy moan from the suddenly tame succubus.
