“As far as I am aware they can't detect it unless of course you use it against them. I haven't come across anyone that can sense magic.” Azalea assured her then she addressed her other concerns.

“Magic is nothing to worry about. Before I came here I could still use it. It was stronger though. Something about this place dampens it so I'm not able to do as much as I could with it. Not many people have the gift. Most people I've encountered, even would be practitioners of the arts, can't use it.”

That addressed Azalea looked back to the jungle. Her gaze lingered there for a long moment then she looked back. “Some have fought back. With or without magic it all ends the same way. My incantations are a mere fraction of what they once were so it was a joke tackling those things.

“The best option I find is to try to run but that hasn't worked out for me either. You might have better success with it, that is if you can learn to focus your abilities under duress. So up for the next challenge? It is a little bit more dangerous but let's face it, those things could get at us even here if they were so inclined so the risk may be worth it in the long run.”

A look of cautious uncertainty crept into Tiffany's face as she followed Azalea's lingering stare into the jungle. She seemed nervous tonight... did she see something out there?

It DID make Tiffany feel better to know that the creatures couldn't sense their powers. That would make even practicing extremely dangerous. And although her words were less than optimistic, Azalea's mood seemed to lighten a bit, despite the resignation that they could literally be attacked at any given moment on any given day. Still, the girl had a point.

Tiffany sighed and then gave her friend what she hoped was an optimistic looking smile.

"Ok, Az... what did you have in mind?"

For a moment, Tiffany could only stare at Azalea with a dumbfounded look on her face.

"You can make fake monsters? I can't decide if that is awesome or terrifying... how many can you make? You know, at the same time, I mean..."

Tiffany was excited to learn her new friend could do something like that, but as she realized exactly what Azalea was suggesting, a worried look replaced the dumbfounded one that was there moments ago.

"Umm... what exactly do these "facsimilies" do? I mean, they can't hurt me, right?"

“Well, not exactly … I can generate tiny creatures that look like miniature tornadoes. They can manipulate air, disturb small objects and the like. Against one of those things there useless. Another student they could be damaging if I direct them to be though it's more of an annoyance then anything. Think a really big bug.

“But they should provide enough of a threat to serve as a challenge to encourage you to release some of that magical energy quicker. It doesn't take much to dissipate them and I can make a lot of them but can only control one or two at a time. I gets tricky controlling more than one at once, I can do it for a short time but it's tiring.

“They can't really do any real damage even if I tried.” She blushed and looked away having thought of something that she seemed embarrassed by. Then gazing back at her she continued. “Umm … there is one thing their sorta good at, not that you'd have to worry about it. I found out by accident when trying to fight one of those things once ...”

Tiffany noticed Azalea's embarrassed look and recognized it immediately, having felt the same way more than once when thinking about her time here at Shokushu. She walked over to her friend and put her arm around Azalea's shoulder, rubbing her hand up and down along her back in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Az. I'm starting to realize that it seems like we have most likely all been there before...

...so, what are these little zephyr's of yours so good at?"

She paused thinking deeply on the matter then took in a big breath. “There good at destroying clothing. A peer of mine got in the way of one of them when I was trying to fight one of them off. It made things a bit easier for it. Their better outside of combat though.

“They can carry light objects and do a little damage if I concentrate on them making them generate a gust of wind that forces things back, sort of like a fire hose if turned on a person. I use to be able to knock people over before coming here, I never tried to make it stronger against someone except one of them and it had no measurable effect. My magic is a mere fraction of what it was.

“I can also sense through them, not all of them but only one at a time and it takes a great deal of concentration. Their hard to see unless moving over particular terrain or moving quickly but if they move slow or remain stationary their practically invisible so they make great spies.

“That's the best use for them but for training they should work to draw out your powers. They can be annoying enough to add a bit of pressure to things.”

"Hmmm... so, what you're saying is, you can summon up a couple of these little whirlwind things for me to use as target practice except I wouldn't have as much time to gather my concentration, so I'd have to learn to use my powers faster than I do it now."

Tiffany thought about it for a minute. Could she do that? Even though she was getting better, so far it always took her a minute or two to focus before being able to generate any kind of magical effect. A brief closing of her eyes, a couple of deep breaths to center herself and finally a concentrated effort to gather and refine raw mystical energy and release it in a purposeful way. How fast could she do all that?

Of course, at her current level, she probably wouldn't have time for all that anyway if she ran into one of those... things. If she was going to have any hope at all at using magic to defend herself from an actual monster, even a small one like Slarr, she needed to get faster.

"Ok, Az. I think you're right. I need to be quicker. Probably MUCH quicker than I am now. I'll give it a try. I'm not sure how well this is going to work though, so... go easy on me, ok?"

“You got it,” Azalea confirmed. She generated a small whirlwind in the palm of her hand as she considered the limits to her own powers.

Azalea grinned. “No promises,” then she pointed to the jungle indicating that they should go there or she should begin running. It was made clear when she didn't follow herself that she should have been placing some distance between them.

As usual the jungle was quite. No signs of life outside of the vegetation but she knew what lurked out here. Maybe not all the time considering that the bulk of the school considered them crazy in the case except for a small few. The lack of animals made it difficult to determine if anything was around. The big clue from all the animals suddenly going silent was lacking.

She did not get the sense that anyone or thing was watching her but the fact that there were these monstrosities always played at the back of her mind. When she heard rustling it alerted her, her first thoughts being that one of THEM was close but a second later her mind would conclude that they rarely were so careless as to announce their presence. No, it was one of the whirlwinds, at least she hoped.

Branches and brush being swept aside her ears could distinguish the small pings of pebbles hitting the ground after being picked up. She could see the disturbances in the swaying of some of the plants and knew that one of them wasn't far off. She had time to gather herself in the usual sense to launch an attack but she had no idea of the location of any others, if there were any. More distant was the sound of someone moving through the jungle attempting to be quite about it but failing. They were making a good effort, again not a denizen of the island in all likelihood it was Azalea searching for her or staying within the range of her own magical effect.

Tiffany ducked behind a tree keeping her eye on the little whirlwind as best as she could. Despite the speed of the swirling wind it was made of, it made less noise than she would have thought. And when it passed over a clear spot on the ground it was all but invisible.

She managed to track it fairly well though, especially after getting a good view of the track it made through a patch of short, fern-like shrubs. She was ready to blast it as soon as it came closer. Her first shot was already ready to go, she could release the energy she had gathered at any time.

"After that, I guess the race is on..." she thought out loud.

"Can I gather the energy for a second shot before Azzie hits me with another miniature tornado?"

She watched as the zephyr spun its way into range.

Stepping out from behind the tree and pointing Cinder, she thought, "Here goes nothing!" and fired her first round, a rope-like beam made of three strands of fire twining around each other, braiding together into one long ribbon of flame...

As she struck the whirlwind it dissolved breaking apart into nothingness. A patch of vegetation began to ignite. There was no need for a second attack, the thing was extremely weak yet she heard Azalea pick up the pace as she ran in her direction knowing where she had been it was clear that the thing was a mere scout.

But Azalea did not appear. Rather another whirlwind shot into view, ignoring her only to spin around the flames. The air was shunted away from that region starving the fire of oxygen and snuffing it out. Once that was complete the whirlwind went inert more or less spinning in that spot as if awaiting another fire to extinguish. No worries about setting the jungle ablaze other whirlwinds came into view zipping out of the vegetation towards her.

Three or four of the things came at her. Each just as weak as the first but quick and elusive. The ones she was unable to eradicate hit her pushing her a foot or two, stinging any exposed flesh they touch and even damaging clothing fraying a bit of her skirt.

They were annoying like a swarm of mosquitoes. Whenever she managed to take one out another would be manifested in it's place. The idle one only serving to put out any fires before they got too large. The things were quick and there attacks scaling up growing more annoying by the second.

If they would grow more potent was another matter. Azalea stopped somewhere out of sight. Able to use these things as extra eyes it was clear that she was able to sense everything that was going on. Clearly they were not giving her too much time and either the best option would be to run and charge up her attacks firing every once and a while, confronting Azalea or attempting to deal with the never ending swarm of whirlwinds.

Each one tended to hit her to knock her off her game. She needed to be quicker if she were to stand up against all three of them at the same time. Whether this was meant as a chase or for her to get some practice in against a small group of annoying targets was anyone's guess.

Tiffany tried to use the trees as cover as much as possible, darting back and forth between the trunks and firing off blasts of fire as quickly as she could. As she feared, her first shot had been simple, releasing the energy she had already gathered and obliterating the first zephyr pretty easily. After that though, she had beem forced to try and "reload" much faster. She found out that she was quicker than she had expected, but still not quick enough. The zephyrs were winning.

Every time one hit her, it didn't hurt, but it whipped her hair about her face, obscuring her vision and knocking her around a little. And Azalea hadn't been wrong about what they did to clothes! She was pretty sure she was missing more than one button on her blouse and the hem of her skirt was frayed. It also felt like her skirt had been blown around backwards...

The worst part though, was the way the swirling force of the wind that the zephyr's were made of blew across her chest when they hit her. The air in the jungle was warm, but Tiffany's breasts had always been extremely sensitive (especially her nipples) and the constant buffeting of the wind had made her nipples extremely stiff and hard. She wasn't aroused by the things exactly, it was just a common physical reaction to an external stimulus, but she could feel them pressing into the fabric of her bra and it was very distracting to say the least.

Making matters worse was that every time she did manage to blast on of the annoying little whirlwinds, another one blew into existence almost immediately to replace it. Since she was supposed to be practicing getting faster, the idea of actually cutting them off at the source by attacking Azzie never really crossed her mind.

Instead, Tiffany scrambled around between the trees, leaping out to fire at the zephyrs as quickly as she could. She managed to blast another one just as one of the other two whipped around from behind the tree she was using for cover and knocked her sideways. As she stumbled to her right, she tripped over one of the trees exposed roots and went sprawling to the ground.

"Unnnffff!"

She wasn't hurt, but she lost her grip on Cinder and the zephyr's wind sent the wand blowing off away from her and into the trees. She pushed up onto her hands into a sitting position and found herself staring straight at one of the little windstorms flying straight for her. She didn't NEED the wand to use her abilities, but it made her faster and more accurate. Without it, and sitting as she was on the ground, Tiffany started to panic a little as the whirlwind quickly closed the distance to it's target...

The whirlwind closed in on her then stopped swirling about in front of her as the others went inert too. Azalea stepped into view with a concerned look on her face. “Are you OK?” She wasn't being vicious, this was training after all.

One of the zephyrs moved collecting up the want that swirled about the gust of air as it was carried back too her and deposited in the palm of her hand. Before they got started again Azalea offered up a bit of advice.

“You're getting faster. But you don't need to charge up so much. As you've probably noticed the zephyrs aren't that strong so most no physical attacks cause them to dissipate. I can create another quickly though. Go for speed over power right now. Once you get the hang of that we can work on scaling up the power of your attacks. I can create stronger zephyrs but only one or two at most so we might have to get the other girls to help out to work on both speed and power at the same time.”

She cast her a smile helping her up to her feet. “Sorry about the clothes. I've learned a mending spell since the incident last time with the zephyrs and I'll fix them up afterwards. Are you ready to continue?”

Is she noticed those hard nipples Azalea didn't bring any attention to them. The book influencing the dream had other ideas. Indeed it played with her subconscious rummaging through it as it created the very thing that had been watching the two drawn by it's own dark influence even while it trained her in the arts on this subconscious level it fed off of what it needed, what it wanted. Soon those desires would manifest themselves after Azalea worked on stripping away some more of the clothing, toying with her a little more as practice went on.

When most convenient for it she word hear a muffled cry from Azalea then silence as if something struck out at her unexpectedly while she was out of sight. The zephyrs all winking out of existence as silence prevailed. It felt as if eyes were upon her watching and staring at her and they were.

A burst of movement caught her attention as something charged straight at her from the bushes ahead of her to the right. It was a dark black or green, humanoid scaled thing though in those scant few seconds she was unable to make out many details other than the cold yellow eyes that glared at her young body.

Was that a scream?

"Az?"

Tiffany called out when she heard the odd noise somewhere out of her line of sight through the trees. The sudden disappearance of the zephyrs made the noise all the more troubling...

"AZZIE!"

She yelled it this time, hoping for some response so that she might be able get at least a general direction to her friend. The only answer was silence until...

She heard it before she saw it, something dark and reptilian with pale yellow eyes rushing towards her. For a moment she almost thought it was Slarr, but he was quieter and she didn't see wings... afraid now of the speed at which the thing was coming on, Tiffany raised Cinder.

It was both good and bad that she had been training only moments before. For one thing, she was already prepared to use her abilities. And she HAD been working on quickness. With her most impressive level of speed so far, Tiffany fired off not one, but THREE arrow like bolts of flame at the creature rushing towards her. The bad part about how she had been training was that even though her attacks were fast, they weren't anywhere close to being at "full power."

Her first shot, taken while she was caught off guard and aiming at a moving target, missed altogether. The glowing bolt sailed harmlessly above the creature and exploded against the trunk of a tree, showering the ground with bright orange sparks.

Her second and third shots though were on target. The second bolt hit the creature somewhere below its face causing another flash of bright flame as it did. Before Tiffany could tell if the shot had slowed the creature down or not, her next shot hit. The two flashes of fire in quick succession momentarily blinded her...

Tiffany blinked away the bright spots floating before her eyes and looked frantically for the thing that had been charging her, trying to "charge up" another shot as she did so...

Two of the three shots found their mark on the beast though she was unable to capitalize on the situation whether fight or flight kicked in due to her own brief blindness from her own attack. Her vision cleared just in time for her to react to a claw being launched in her direction ducking it and and causing it to make short work out of the tree that had been behind her.

The creature had been hindered by her attack but since she had been as well the situation tended to cancel itself out. Whatever damage she caused had been more annoying than damaging, save for the clawed beast suffering from a momentary bout of blindness.

She did manage to scramble away from the creature for the moment though it was always one step behind her knocking aside the smaller trees in an effort to keep on her heels while having to move around the larger ones. At this close range she would note that the creature had a thick tail that trailed after it. It looked like a large muscle combination of a man and a crocodile.

Just as it looked as if she could get some separation (as the fire did little to slow it down) her ankle was cracked by that whipping tail sending her to the ground. A clawed hand pressed to her lower back pinning her in place while the other hand began taring at her tattered clothes tossing aside the fabric it shredded away that wrapping.

“Sssuch a pathetic attack!” It hissed from behind her as it tared away her bra, claws skimming down her back to her panties only to tare them away as well.