Post by Delashano on Feb 23, 2014 8:11:48 GMT -5
A light rapping rang through Jenn’s room as she lay on her bed entirely awake but utterly disinterested in being up and about, she let out a sigh as she ignored the sound hoping the person on the other end of the door would go away, she was unsurprised however when the sound of knocking came one again a few moments later. “Come in Astos...” Jenn said with a heavy sigh not bothering to move from where she was. She barely even tilted her head to watch as the door opened slowly. Through the door stepped a young man of not particularly impressive physical build, his long hair nearly tied into a ponytail that reached just past his shoulders and his eyes a bright blue but clearly filled with a significant amount of worry as he looked upon Jenn. Astos while not a truly impressive sight was in fact a man of rather great importance, he was the one and only student of the Guardian of Earth Seikatsu, having found and climbed the mighty tower and through use of his interesting powers managed to lift himself up beyond the tower and all the way to the Lookout seeking an audience with the Guardian.
Astos had received his audience and not long after that became Seikatsu’s student as Seikatsu saw that Astos had the potential to be his successor. Just a few short years ago this had come to pass; Seikatsu had finally succumbed to the rigors of old age and passed the mantle of Guardianship on to Astos. Even though it had been obvious that it was coming Astos had felt rather overwhelmed by it all but ultimately had settled well into his position, Seikatsu had done well teaching and preparing him for what he would need to do and the world was thankfully at relative peace allowing for a blissfully uneventful transition. However while Astos had found his transition easy he had noted that Mahajenn had been hit quite hard by Seikatsu’s passing, Astos himself had been greatly saddened by his mentors passing but had found that doing his work had in some ways helped deal with his grief. Mehajenn however seemed to have no such outlet and rarely ever left her room.
It had been perhaps the worst kept secret between the three of them that Mahajenn and Seikatsu were on some level romantically involved, however Astos had learned over time that it was not a romance that was able to grow, he had caught occasional discussions between the two alluding to the relationship and it was the Guardianship that had made things difficult. Astos knew a rather small amount about Jenn herself, he considered her a friend certainly and had even managed to learn that Jenn considered him the same during his training but even still learning about the woman’s history was tough. What he DID know was that she was for all intents and purposes immortal, he had arrived on the Lookout at a young age, barely a teenager and in the many years he had spent there she had not aged a day, even as Seikatsu grew wrinkled and gray Jenn remained static the most change being what she visually changed about herself, learning that she was a Genie had explained it and in his research into Genies he had found stories of Jenn’s past and that had perhaps explained WHY she was so unwilling to talk about her history. It was not exactly a pretty one.
What little he DID get from her was that what he had read was to an extent true but was of course written from the perspective of those she had scorned. “Hello Jenn, you’ve been cooped up for a bit. I understand you don’t need to be out in the sun and can create your own food but I remain worried for you.” Astos spoke up, drawing himself from his thoughts of the past; he had been standing in Jenn’s doorway for an unknown amount of time reflecting on the past as he looked upon her. She didn’t look necessarily unwell; rather she looked just as distraught as she had been the day Seikatsu had passed. Astos it somewhat his duty to try and help Jenn, she was a friend of his and the closest person to his mentor, it pained him to see her in such a state.
“Thank you for your concern Astos, I’m just not feeling well.” Jenn lied followed by a heavy sigh as she lifted herself to a seated position on the bed; despite wanting to remain there she knew that her statement would likely be nowhere near enough to send Astos off on his way. She hadn’t really realized that she had been spending more time down here; she had simply not felt like being out and about. Everywhere she went reminded her of Seikatsu. “Jenn I don’t think you realize how much time you spend down here, it’s been nearly two weeks since you’ve last left this room.” Astos said, before that Jenn had been out and about for a few days, she had done her best to help him but not long after had returned to her room for some ‘rest’ Astos wondered how best to breach the subject, Jenns temper was a dangerous thing to play with and he was unsure how much he could say before he overstepped his boundary’s. Presently Jenn was looking at him with a look that while somewhat surprised didn’t seem ultimately that effected by the notion. From the stories it was likely Jenn had been around a rather LONG time, perhaps to her a mere few weeks was barely worth note. “Jenn I… I don’t believe Seikatsu would like to see you like this.” Astos finally said braceing himself for anything.
Just as Astos had believed Jenn had’t really thought much of the near two weeks she had been down here, she had a vague understanding that that was a bit much, especially since she had become rather used to being out and about and living a more standard ‘life’ but it had been easy to fall into the old habit of just not doing anything for long periods of time, just sort of laying and not thinking of much of anything made everything a lot easier. She had been about to make a comment trying to defend her resting when Astos had done away with beating around the bush. Fury filled her as she leapt to her feet and prepared to verbally(and perhaps physically) assault Astos for making such a claim but as she closed the distance between herself and Astos her mind had just enough time to really get what he was saying. He wasn’t trying to insult her, trying to use Seikatsu against her, he was right.
She absolutely hated it but he was right it would have hurt Seikatsu to see her like this he hated seeing the people he loved in pain, but it was all so much more difficult to deal with than she was used to. Being out and about was difficult, it was painful not seeing Seikatsu around and she HATED it, before him she hadn’t even really HAD anyone to mourn, all of her other summoner’s had been people whom she hadn’t pitied even one bit if they met an early end. They had been awful terrible people of varying degrees and most of them deserved it, but Seikatsu had been different he’d been everything that they weren’t and now he was gone. She hadn’t lost anyone before, not truly lost. Samael had been close and she had been sad to see him go but Samael had just been a friend. Seikatsu had been much more. “I… I don’t know what else to do. He was all I had.” Jenn said unballing her fists and letting her arms fall to her side. Astos took a step forward and placed a hand on Jenns shoulder “I can’t begin to imagine how that feels Jenn, Seikatsu was very important to me as well but you’ve been with him for so much longer and you two were certainly much closer. But you can’t just ignore it all it may perhaps feel better for now but ultimately it will just make it hurt worse later.”
~~~
It took a few days after their discussion for Jenn to return to really return to ‘action’ at Astos’ suggestion Jenn was working on things that she enjoyed rather than sulking about, it had been what had helped him get back into sorts to an extent and he hoped that perhaps it would aid Jenn in her recovery as well. Presently Jenn was out on the Lookout’s outer area it hadn’t been hard to figure out what she needed to do, most of her hobbies were just fleeting things that caught her eye, sure she perhaps had more mastery over what she considered a ‘hobby’ than a ‘normal person’ but with the vastness of her life it was hard to NOT become accomplished at many things. But the thing she truly enjoyed the most was her magic, learning new ways to use it and have fun with it were always enjoyable moments. Advancing her real magical talent within her ring was a rather difficult process, she COULD develop new techniques but often she found herself lacking the power to preform them properly outside due to the difference in power between the outer world and her ring’s world.
Jenn was presently simple allowing her power to roll of her creating a thick smokey mist that covered much of the lookout her eyes closed Jenn began manipulating the mist forming it into all manner of objects, chairs, paintings, bricks, jewelry, clothing, but likewise deconstructing them just as quickly letting them fall apart back into smoke and return to the mist surrounding her. Idly as she worked feeling the rush of power from just letting herself cut loose she felt Astos’s presence exit the temple, it paused at the approximate location of the doorway for a few moments before making its way towards her. “You seem to be doing a bit better.” Astos said quite pleased to see a positive change back to somewhere approaching normal for Jenn. “I am... I’m certainly not at my best yet but I think I am, you’ve been a great help Astos. Hopefully soon I’ll be back in sorts enough to help you with the work of being Guardian. I’ve been neglecting that for a bit now…” Jenn said opening her eyes and turning her head slightly to see Astos as he approached walking around her to stand before her. “Take all the time you need Jenn, thanks to you Seikatsu was able to pass down a lot of his knowledge to me and the earth is thankfully peaceful for the moment. I do think however that I have an idea that would be beneficial to us both.” Astos said giving her a grin.
Jenn raised an eyebrow at that and gave Astos a ‘go on’ look to which he nodded. “You’re magic is truly astounding Jenn, I’ve worked much of my life to get where I am with my own mystical abilities but I can’t quite accomplish some of what you’re capable of. You’re ability to create things with your mystical energy alone is amazing and I was wondering if you would be willing to teach me that technique? I do not however expect such a thing for free; I have a technique of my own creation that I believe you are not capable of but might be of interest to you.” Astos said his grin widening slightly as he noticed Jenn appeared genuinely interested. For Jenn her interest stemmed from the fact that she was in fact well aware that Astos was rather impressively talented with magic but he tended to keep his talents rather close to his chest, from what she had learned many of them were family secrets passed down to him things that had been developed and improved for generations which meant that while Astos was rather young (relatively speaking) the magic he knew was quite old.
“I could not teach you my specific version of the technique but I could teach you the more traditional version, I would teach you my own if it was possible but it draws upon my genie power to manifest which is why my creations manifest through the smoke I generate. The techniques are essentially the same though it will perhaps take longer for you to learn to manifest more complex objects than my technique would but with your talent for magic the time should be negligible.” Jenn explained wanting to make sure Astos knew that the technique he would learn would not necessarily be the exact technique she used herself. “That is fine with me, so long as the end result is the same.” Astos agreed, he didn’t mind the difference especially as it was because the technique she DID normally use was simply impossible for him to accomplish. “Before we begin however I would like to know the technique you feel I might be interested in. I don’t doubt that it will be worthwhile considering what I’ve seen from you.” Jenn inquired, Astos like herself prefered to lean on more ‘tricky’ Magics rather than more direct ‘blast ‘em to dust’ tactics
“The technique I offer is one developed by my grandfather, it is a shape shifting technique allowing it’s user to take on the form of creatures that they have encountered. The first step of the technique is traditional human and animal folk forms, though now that I think of it I suppose the form of a Genie would be likewise possible.” Astos said and with a grin he began channeling his energy his body glowed a pale blue for a few second and before Jenns eyes his form shifted to one rather familiar to her. Her own, Jenn blinked in surprise as she looked upon her doppelganger. It was unsettling for a moment to actually be faced with herself it was far different than looking at herself in the mirror, the genie however quickly found herself zipping around the Astos!Jenn taking in her own appearance from a new perspective. Astos quickly found himself mildly regretting taking on Jenn’s form, thankfully since it was not a part of the techniques parameters he remained in his own clothing rather than donning Jenn’s own. “out of curiosity…” Jenn began to ask something that Astos had already predicted, he KNEW exactly where that question was going by the look in her eyes. “At present yes the transformation is exact. Yes THAT exact.” Astos said feeling blood rush to his face and beginning to feel even more embarrassed as Jenn let out a amused cackle.
Jenn couldn’t help but let out a laugh at Astos’s reaction, it was actually rather amusing to see her own image looking and acting in such a manner. It felt good to have a bit of fun like this again; it had been a while since she’d really had a good laugh. “Certainly interesting, heck I’d be more than interested in just this part of the technique since its right up my alley but you said this is just the first step?” Jenn asked curious what more the technique could accomplish, potential places it could go were obvious but what had been made capable by Astos’ family was what she was interested in. Astos let out a breath and transformed back to his normal form immediately feeling a great sense of relief “The second step is transformation to non-humanlike beings, things such as animals." Astos explained and once again a pale blue light enveloped his form, this time however there was a MUCH greater visble transformation to the technique as Astos grew smaller and smaller and took on a four legged form. Once the transformation was complete where once stood Astos not stood a small black housecat pulling itself out of Astos’ robes. Jenn let out a sound of joy as she caught sight of Cat!Astos immediately dropping down to scratch the newly transformed cats ears. “Hah that’s amazing!” Jenn said with a grin as her mind raced with the possibilities of the technique. Astos let out a meow that sounded somewhere between indignation and enjoyment.
After a few moments Astos returned to his human form in order to properly explain the remainder of the technique returning to the inside of his robes in order to not reappear without them when transformed back. “The limitations of the technique are that while you look and sound like what you transform into you won’t necessarily know how to ACT like how what you become is supposed to act, me becoming you didn’t impart on me how you act. As well you can only take on the specific forms of beings that you’ve encountered as I mentioned earlier. So if you wanted to become a specific person you would need to actually know what they looked like, once you’re more used to the technique it becomes possible to create composite forms to make ‘unique’ appearances but I suggest sticking to specific people while working on it to begin with. Becoming something like a cat requires a lot more of just letting magic do the heavy lifting unless you decide to study the creatures you wish to become.” Astos said pausing to ensure that Jenn understood, not surprisingly she appeared to comprehend likely because magic was just as much her forte as it was his own. Jenn let out a chuckle “That should be relatively easy, and if you’re already used to doing that learning my manifestation technique should be easier on you, it also relies a bit heavily on allowing magic to do the heavy lifting unless you want a very specific appearance for the item you’re creating.” Jenn said glad that Astos would already have a decent grounding in what was necessary for the technique, long ago it had been a rather trying task to learn to ‘let magic do its thing’ for her, as much of what she used to do outside of wishes involved more specific control of her magic.
"Now that I know you're willing to make this trade I'll let you get back to your relaxation. Would you be interested in beginning work tomorrow? We can decide then which technique we want to work on as I don’t believe it matters much which we begin on, neither of us are exactly the sort nor in a position to run off after learning the others technique." Astos said with a laugh, even if either of them WERE the sort to do so there various obligations would prevent such a thing the Lookout was a home to both of them so there wasn't exactly many places they could even go to. "Sounds good to me, after this I'll go take a look to make sure the Time Chamber and Pendulum Room are still functioning properly." Jenn said before powering up once again causing the lookout to be shrouded in smoke.
~~~
The next day had Jenn and Astos up and about a bit earlier than normal, the duo went about the normal routine scanning the Earth for any problems that might need to be addressed by them rather than simply letting the events play out thankfully there was nothing that required the direct attention of the Guardian and after attending to the menial work around the Lookout Astos and Jenn were able to finally take the time to begin working on thee technique exchange. "Considering that you're technique seems to be the one that will require the most actual 'work' to be completed I think it would probably be easier if I taught you my technique first." Jenn suggested as they exited the temple heading out into the courtyard of the Lookout where they had decided would be the most ideal place to get there work done. "Ultimately the majority of the work that will need to be done with my technique will simply be you working to get it 'perfect' having the manifestation become more of a reflex rather than something requiring intense focus and that isn't exactly something I can teach it's just something that comes with time and practice." Jenn stated glad to see that Astos clearly understood this, it was almost certain that he had heard that sort of thing many times before as many magical techniques were much the same way they started off excessively difficult to do but with time became as easy as a thought. "That seems fair, it also gives me the opportunity to work on the technique while teaching you my own, the Shape shifting technique will be similar but thankfully I can help in some ways once you do actually have the technique down by pointing out flaws in the transformation." Astos said with a nod.
"Alright then." Jenn said letting out a calming breath, she wasn't actually particularly well versed in teaching magic, she had helped Seikatsu with a few things but ultimately he hadn't been the type to hold a vast array of techniques simply preferring to stick to a few very well trained abilities. "The first real step in beginning with the technique is understanding what it is you're trying to create, generally the more familiar you are with the thing you want to make the easier it is to create." Jenn extended a hand palm up in Astos' direction and began focusing her magic "Once you've got a clear Idea of what it is you want to create you have to properly visualize it in you're mind. Know what you want it to look like, how it feels, and everything else you can imagine about it. That's why its easier to create things that you're familiar with." Jenn explained as she her energy began flowing into the area just above her palm slowly becoming visual as a pale blue light. "Once you've got the picture clear in your mind you focus you're magic and mold it into the shape, that part is perhaps a bit more difficult to properly explain but you've said you're familiar with the concept of letting magic 'do its work' and that is a lot of what molding the object is just letting you're magic shape itself into the image in your mind. It's important that while manifesting the item that you don't try and make and sudden changes while its actually manifesting, nothing dangerous will happen usually but the end result will usually be either a failed manifestation or a poor hybridization of the two concepts." Jenn continued her explanation as the magical energy in her palm began to shift and take on a more defined form slowly but surely taking on the shape of a necklace rather similar to the one Jenn herself was wearing. "A few important things about this technique are that while you CAN create things that bare impressive similarities to precious gems such as in the jewlery I make the gems themselves are not the real thing, nor are the metals that are created by the technique. They can often make for an almost perfect replica but they are ultimately just magical constructs." Jenn said as the item in her hand finally took complete form and fell into her palm now an almost exact replica of her necklace.
Astos stared in fascination as Jenn explained the technique and took the time to slowly go through the process of creating the item, the concepts behind it were easy enough for him to grasp and already his mind was buzzing with activity as it began to take in everything Jenn had said working out every detail and trying to firmly grasp how he would go about reproducing it. "I believe I am following you so far I have a question though, I've seen you create food with this technique before, can you explain a bit about how that works?" Astos spoke up as Jenn seemed to have paused not just to take a few breaths but also seemingly to make sure he understood. Jenn nodded and banished the new necklace causing it to burst like a bubble "Edible foods are something that can be created with this technique, much like you would with anything else you need to visualize the food in order to create it and ultimately the only addition to it that you need to make is to visualize the taste of the food, to make sure that you remember exactly how eating it is supposed to taste otherwise you end up with something bland and literally tasteless. The important thing to remember however is that while it CAN sustain you it's not exactly a good idea unless you're also getting enough rest to recuperate you're energy reserves since the energy required to make something that would properly sustain you would take a fair amount of energy since what you're doing is essentially using your own energy to sustain you're body. I would not suggest trying to sustain both food and water needs with your own energy, doing it occasionally because you want to enjoy something specific is fine but trying to actually fully sustain you're body with your own energy will leave you very drained and require a lot of energy. Likewise the creation of liquids is a bit.... finicky it's probably one of the more difficult things to get down properly along with anything else that isn't properly solid. If sustaining you're need for water becomes a necessary through use of this technique I highly suggest trying to manifest the water BEFORE you need it and when you are at you're best that way you have a supply beforehand. A failed manifestation will still drain you're energy and thus if you're trying to manifest water when you're desperate and not thinking clearly it will likely just leave you MORE in need than before." Jenn explained taking great care to ensure that Astos was well aware of the risks involved with manifesting edible creations, she doubted he would ever find it necessary to actually NEED to sustain himself with the technique but it was better safe than sorry.
"Now let’s see about you giving it a try." Jenn said to let Astos know that at least for the moment she had covered all the major details that would be necessary for him to be aware of. "Alright." Astos said with a nod rolling his shoulders and letting out a breath to steady himself, he was well aware that Jenn likely didn't expect him to accomplish the task of reproducing the technique on his first try but Astos couldn't help but feel the urge to get the technique as well done on his first try as possible. With this in mind he began thinking over what would be the best item to begin with. "As a reference working with something more familiar to you rather than something simple is for the best, it'll be harder but ultimately it will garner better results over time." Jenn interrupted seemingly reading Astos' mind, he had just been trying to decide which route would be best, the fact that familiarity over simplicity was Jenn's suggestion he chose to yield to her judgement, she was after all the person teaching him. With his choices narrowed somewhat it was now a matter of figuring out what he was familiar with the most but remained fairly 'simple' still. The answer hit him rather suddenly; it was actually surprisingly obvious what he should choose.
Astos took in a few deep breaths as he extended his hand much like Jenn had done while demonstrating the technique for him, closing his eyes Astos began to mentally visualize it, the item in question was his ear-ring a fairly simple piece of silver jewelry it was despite its simple apperance a rather important item to him, it had belonged to his father, and his father’s father before him, in his youth he had been made to believe that the earring helped to focus his magical ability but that had all simply been a trick in order to help him with his control. With the belief that the earring was helping it had become easier, perhaps now it would help him once again. Astos' aura flared around him as he moved from simply visualizing the earring to bringing his mystical energy forward focusing it into the palm of his hand and slowly shaping the energy. "Easy now Astos, force won't get the job done you need to keep it under control." Jenn said as she walked around Astos, she could feel the guardians energy radiating off of him and into the sphere of energy in his palm, she knew however that he was putting a bit TOO much into the technique and considering how dense the ball was becoming she could assume he was creating something rather small something that wouldn't necessarily need too much energy. Jenn was glad to see Astos didnt falter as she began instructing him while he performed the technique, likely a result of having done this many times before. "Work out the shape first, mold the energy until it looks right to you." Jenn instructed as she watched Astos go to work his brow furrowing in concentration.
Slowly the mass of energy dimmed as Astos began pouring less energy into it and began shifting his focus more toward shaping it, compacting the energy until it was roughly the same size shifting the energy around with as much precision as he could muster. The task required a rather monumental amount of focus and he could scarcely believe that eventually this sort of technique would be something preformed on instinct alone. The whole thing reminded him of when he had been young, when his father had just begun teaching him. Astos realize quickly that he was letting his mind wander, already the energy had begun to move out of alignment trying to shift itself out of the constrained form he had been working it into. Returning it to the general shape of the earring was difficult but manageable. "Well done, I wasn't sure if you would be able to recover it. Whoever taught you did well." Jenn congratulated sounding genuinely impressed with what he had done. "Now's the hard bit, shifting the energy into an actual form, you'll need a bit more energy now for this and here is where you sort of need to let the magic do the heavy lifting. Just keep what it is on your mind, what it’s made of how it feels, how much it weighs, everything you can think of will help make the connection easier." Jenn instructed and even as she did so Astos began the work of doing as she explained wanting everything to be as fresh in his mind as possible.
It took several more minutes before Astos finished his work as he finally felt he had poured as much as he could into the technique. As he opened his eyes he realized several things, firstly was that it was quite a bit darker out than when they had begun and secondly that he was exhausted. But sitting neatly in his palm was what appeared to be the very earring that he was currently wearing. Jenn took a few steps forward to take a look at it. "Marvelous job Astos, mind if I take a look?" Jenn asked holding out a hand to him. Astos wordlessly handed over the false earring allowing Jenn a chance to inspect it a bit closer. "This is a recreation of the one you're wearing right?" Jenn asked receiving a nod from Astos who found he still feeling a bit too tired to speak. "It looks good, not perfect but impressive for first try, heck it would be a bit impressive if it was a creation after a few weeks of work. A few of the inscriptions on it are a bit off though unless they are supposed to look that way and it feels a bit heavier than it should be. I've never seen you're earring up close so I can’t say for certain." Jenn said handing the item back to Astos who immediately looked it over himself to see what Jenn meant. "You are right, they are not quite how they are supposed to be." Astos said however his annoyance with the imperfections was dwarfed by the joy he felt with having accomplished this in any form so soon. "I believe I may have taken a bit longer with this than you generally take." Astos said making a gesture at the darkened sky. "Yeah just a bit, but that's not a big deal. Speed comes with practice. Once you're a bit more comfortable with the technique start working on it with your eyes open, it gives you a better sense of how long the process is taking and makes it easier to work on speeding it up." Jenn said. "Banishing a manifested object is very easy just focus on it and think of it dispersing, you don't need to get rid of it if you want to keep it around just letting you know for future reference. And with that I think we should call it a night for out lesson, I'm hungry and you're exhausted." Jenn said with a laugh as she began dragging Astos in the direction of the temple Astos managed a chuckle as they made their way through the temple and into the kitchen.
~~~
The rest of that week was spent with Jenn and Astos continuing to work on improving Astos' skill with manifestation and by the end of the week Astos was proficient enough with the technique that the duo decided he was at the point where there was little more that Jenn could help him with, the rest of the work would simply be a matter of Astos becoming more familair with the technique over time and through use the speed at which he could manifest had already been cut down significantly allowing him to properly train the technique without devoting an entire days efforts to it and with that he could begin working on it while simultaneously preforming his duties as Guardian. With Astos having a handle on the technique now the time had come for Jenn to learn from Astos.
"Alright Jenn, I believe we decided that today we would begin work on you learning the shape shifting technique, are you still as confident with my ability to handle manifestation?" Astos asked, while Astos was fairly confident with his progress he wanted to ensure that Jen was still reasonably certain he had everything down. He had worked quite hard over the last week but where the technique had taken a monumental effort before it now was approaching much more reasonable levels, his present work on the technique was manifesting while distracted, doing his normal work and otherwise keeping busy while manifesting objects of various levels of complexity. "Yeah like I said the other day your about as far along as you can get while being instructed, from here on out its just improving what you are already capable of." Jenn said giving Astos a confident nod. "Now on to the fun bit, you teaching me how to shape shift." Jenn said a wide grin spreading across her face, at first she had just been fairly interested in the technique but as the week ran on she found the anticipation building more and more her mind flooding with all sorts of ways to work with the technique. It had been a LONG time since she'd had something new to work with and from Astos' indication the technique would take her at least as much effort to perfect as it was taking him to do so with manifesting.
Astos chuckled at Jenn's eagerness and nodded "Alright then, I suppose I'll begin with how the technique actually works. the initial form of the technique which is the basis for the complete version is relatively simple and now that I have an understanding of your manifestation technique it will actually be even easier for me to explain. The shapeshifting technique works in a similar manner from what I can discern save for the fact that instead of focusing your energy outward and shaping it into an object you will be internalizing the energy spreading it throughout your body and using it to restructure you're form to that of the form you intend to take on." Astos explaing pausing to ensure that Jenn was following, upon recieving a nod he continued. "Generally speaking the amount of time and energy necessary for the transformation depends on how far away from your natural form the form you intend to take on is. Becoming larger or smaller to a significant degree, changing gender, species, these all take a lot of time and energy. Simple things like hair color and style and small physical adjustments are simple and can be done more or less instantly if you develop your skill well enough." Astos explained once again taking a moment to pause this time however in order to decide where best to progress with the explanation.
"It is not advisable to attempt to use shape shfting while significantly injured, the technique is not intended to mend wounds and when i was instructed in the use of the technique it was made quite clear that attempting to shift a wound into a repaired state would likely do more damage instead. I have a few theory's on how to fix this fault in the technique but at the moment they remain just that." Jenn found it a tad frustrating that the technique was unusable in such a fashion but if the technique was not intended for such in it's current form then so be it, perhaps she would have to work on that aspect as well. "On a similar note It is not advisable to make significant changes to your internal body structure without knowing the more complete version of the technique and even then it is only really a good idea to shift your internal structure into what is 'normal' for the form you intend to take on, shifting around organs into ways that they are not naturally designed to be in can and will result in death. It can however be accomplished when you put enough time into working on it, I am capable of it myself but even with as long as I've been capable of preforming the technique I still find that taking it slow with shifting organs is for the best. I find that the only time that it is reasonable to make any adjustment to you're internal structure is when the new form accommodates these changes, namely forms pertaining to the second part of the technique but also for forms of people significantly different than you in size, children, and animal-folk. Considering the nature of magic in those situations it is often best to let IT do the bulk work on shifting things so that they match up properly. I've found that even if I am not personally knowledgeable on how something is supposed to be arranged that if I allow my magic to take over the end result is a better match than what I could accomplish." Astos explained glad to see that the importance of what he was explaining was not lost on Jenn, some of the others whom had been taught by his father along with Astos had not been so attentive and a few had been foolish enough to try using the technique in battle to avoid potentially lethal attacks while holding there ground rather than moving to avoid the attack, those same students had not lived long enough to be hit by the attacks they had been trying to survive.
"Alright so hold off on anything really tricky like that until I understand the technique better. Probably wont be something I'm too interested in trying out anyway so it should not be likely to come up. With what you've mentioned anyway it seems unlikely that unless I entirely focused on that specific aspect of the technique that I'd be able to preform it with any amount of speed necessary in a fight. Do you think you could display the technique for me again? I saw it when you first suggested this trade but seeing it again and being able to study it a bit more will help out tremendously" Jenn asked to which she received a nod from Astos. "That was actually what I was planning to do next, I'll show you a few variations of the basic technique. A simple transition, size variation, and " Astos let out a sigh "gender." Astos said already dreading the last part after Jenns first reaction to it. Astos' expression darkened further as Jenn was noticeably attempting to hold back a smirk. Without another word Astos began the first shift, it was as he mentioned a simple one, his hair lengthened a few inches reaching a bit further past his shoulders and shifted from it's normal brown to a vibrant shade of red, his skin shifting in shades until it resembled Jenn's own gray-with-a-hint-of-blue but with the blue replaced with red, his eyes became a bright almost glowing orange and finally a few small shifts in facial structure resulted in a face that while it certainly resembled Astos seemed far more likely to belong to perhaps a brother of his. "This shift is one I came up with on the fly, despite being a 'simple' shift it's actually got a bit of complexity to it since I did shift a number of my visual traits around, it helps when shifting to pick out traits that you have seen before rather than building something new unless you have a mirror handy, this shift took a bit from you namely the skin tone with a little modification, and a few bits and pieces from my father and brother for the face, the hair is just an extension and for hair its usually pretty easy to shift freely." Astos explained, while he did so Jenn was taking in the transformation as best she could, during it she had focused on the transformation itself getting a general feel for how the energy was supposed to flow during the shift.
"Before we go on to the next shift why don't you give it a try, go with something simple. Trying to do too much while you're still new to the technique is a bit more dangerous than you described a failed manifestation to be so working slowly with simple things is generally the best way to go." Astos explained, where Jenn had encouraged him to try something familiar but potentially difficult it was far better to do quite the opposite when it came to shifting. He was certain she would pick up on basic shifting fairly quickly, likely before the lessons were over for the day which would give her plenty to work with while they weren't training but pushing too far too quickly could result in an injury which would slow there training a bit, as it stood she had only had a chance to analyze the most basic form which meant she would likely only at most attempt something as complicated as what he had done, adding on size modification would certainly be problematic if she thought it would be a simple matter to try that on her first attempt, a failed attempt at size modification could result in broken bones and that would be more than just a brief delay in not just training but getting anything done and as well he didn't want Jenn hurting herself by accident in general. "If you say so, this part seems interesting enough on it's own anyway." Jenn said with a grin as she took a step back to give herself a bit of space to work with.
Jen began just as Astos had instructed visualizing the changes she wanted to make, she had decided to go against her instincts of going as all out as possible and instead restrain herself to do as Astos had suggested and keep things at least relatively simple, with her vision of her new self in mind Jen began the work of focusing her energy and it was from there that she made her first adjustment to the technique, from everything that Astos described the technique held many similarities in its design to manifestation and she was reasonably certain that the adjustment she intended to make to it would function properly as it was a fairly simple and ultimately the result would be the same with the only true difference being how she went about it. Smoke began billowing out from Jenn but rather than going on to expand out to the rest of the lookout like when she normally powered up it began pulling itself back in on her coating her body in an ever increasingly thick cloud. "Jenn... what are you doing? This isn't how things normally go." Astos asked a bit shocked and confused by the turn of events. After a few moments the thick cloud began to disperse and through the smoke stepped what appeared to be Jenn, however now her skin was a far more 'normal' pallor tanned like a native of the Diablo Desert where her lamp had originally spent much of it's time, as well her hair was much longer reaching the middle of her back and somehow already braided extensively and rather than it's normal color was now a dark brown. Astos blinked a few times taking in the transformation not having expected such results so quickly. "How do I look? I took you're advice and used what I knew already the people from the Diablo have this general sort of tone." Jenn said taking a moment to inspect her arm finding the new color interestingly refreshing. "How did you do the braid?" Astos asked sounding rather dumbfounded, hair styleing like that would be a rather difficult task to accomplish for someone with so little experience with the technique. "I used to wear my hear like this a few centuries ago, I's held together more with a few similarly colored bands than anything else. I used my manifestation to create them and sort of just mixed the two together... not literally of course I just manifested them where they needed to be while I shifted my hair to the proper length. It all became a bit easier to accomplish when I used my style of doing things the smoke that I emit is a manifestation of my own energy an even better representation of it than if I were to project visual energy like when i displayed the manifestation technique you learned. It sort of... 'listens' better is the best way to put it I suppose and I sort of put it to work on helping with the shift, I just needed to project it first in order to internalize it like you explained that I needed to. Mixing the two techniques was just sort of... natural I guess, I already figured they would work well together since you mentioned when we decided to do this that the technique cant create clothes." Jenn explained stunning Astos momentarily, he'd forgotten briefly that despite the fact that Jenn was learning from him that she certainly was more well versed in magic than he was. Now that he thought of it though what she said made sense at least the part about manifestation and shifting working well together.
"Huh, I sometimes forget how much you really know about magic. The shift you preformed was well above what I would expect from a first attempt, I cant even really point out anything out of place. Outside of with hair I'd definitely suggest completing the shift before manifesting clothing due to the risk of accidentally mixing the two but considering the amount of control you seem to have I'd say its a bit less likely to occur for you but still something to keep in mind. Overall I'm amazed and I don't think we need to really linger on basic shifting any longer, releaseing a shift is essentially just preforming one in reverse your mind and magic know your base shape and can very easily revert back to it." Astos explained in order to let Jenn know how to change back properly though she seemed to be enjoying the new form at least for the moment. "Is it problematic to preform a shift while already shifted? I think I'd like to stick to this form for a bit, its new and interesting" Jenn said with a grin "All the benefits of having my hair nice and long but without any of the upkeep as I can simply shift it into it's proper style and if it gets in the way while I sleep I can simple shift it back to my short cut" Jenn said with a grin as she ran across her braid. Astos rolled his eyes at Jenns antics "No shifting while already shifted will not be an issue, even while moving onto a more form the present changes will not make thigns any harder or easier." Astos explained glad that he didn't need to rain on Jenns parade, the fact that she was really enjoying herself was a very good thing. Jenn was much better than the day he had confronted her but would still occasionally slip up, perhaps having something new and fun to 'play' with would help ease her mind.
"Alright well considering that you appear to have a bit of innate proficiency with basic shifting I'll leave it to you to practice it on you're own, as for now I think we can move onto size shifting which I believe will present a more significant challenge. Size shifting is the aspect of shifting that requires the most care to be taken with preforming while learning it, it is the aspect that is most likely to result in injury if not done properly as unlike gender and species shifting it requires more of you're own mental input while they require allowing your magic itself take over. Once you get it down it can be fairly simple to shift you're overall size however." Astos would continue on for the rest of his and Jenn's time for training that day explaining in as much detail as possible all the important aspects of preforming a successful size shift wrapping up the session by requesting that if Jenn did work on shifting between then and there next session that she stick to basic shifting.
Over the next few days Jenn worked hard to get the size aspect down properly finding that unlike basic shifting that size shifting was significantly more difficult to get a handle on, it ultimately took the duo four more days of work in order to get size shifting down to an extent that Jenn and Astos were confident that Jenn would not be at risk to train it on her own. The day after the 'completion' of size shifting Jenn arrived to to her training session with Astos a few minutes late and upon her arrival found Astos setting up a number of large mirrors that he was conjuring with the manifestation technique. "Huh, you've gotten good with the technique Astos, mirrors aren't the easiest thing. I remember when I first tried making them, they ended up a bit more like glassy portraits of myself." Jenn said with a laugh at the memory. "Thank you Jenn I've worked hard to get as proficient with the technique as possible, as for your mirror mishaps I cant quite say I'm surprised that such a thing would happen." Astos said with a grin causing Jenn to stick her tongue out at him. "What are the mirrors for exactly? I'd guess since you're making them now they have to do with training but why now?" Jenn asked, if mirrors could help why hadn't they used them for basic and size shifting, while she wouldn't have needed them for basic shifting if it could have helped with size she would have liked that. "The first two aspects don't exactly benefit much from them. I can rather easily provide feedback on if you've preformed those aspects properly but for the following aspects they require more of your own confirmation of then being done properly." Astos explained, basic shifting was hard to actually be preformed 'wrong' due to its simple nature and Size shifting tended to have more obvious flaws to it such as improperly sized limbs.
"Now today.. today we begin with exactly what I've been dreading since I introduced you to this technique. Gender shifting." Astos said with a heavy sigh as Jenn suppressed a laugh at how flustered Astos still was over what had happened the first time. "Gender shifting's difficulty ultimately depends on the person preforming it, some will find the concept a bit 'too much' and find themselves sort of mentally blocking themselves from preforming the technique. Others less so. For some reason I feel rather certain that I know how this will go." Astos said with a sigh before launching into an explanation on the specifics of how to properly preform a gender shift, it was for all intents and purposes a much more advanced 'basic' shift. "Alrighty then, lets give it a spin then" Jenn said giving Astos a grin as almost immediately her body was consumed by the blue smoke and within an hour the smoke began to slowly disperse revealing Jenn's new shape, one quite familiar to Astos, so much so he thought for a moment she might have managed to sneak off and placed a mirror in the smoke. "How do I look." 'Astos' said revealing that it was not in fact an elaborate ruse but instead a properly preformed shift paired with what he imaged was an equally perfect manifestation of a replica of his outfit. Astos let out a groan of frustration, he was very much torn at the moment, on the one hand Jenn had preformed the shift expertly if only perhaps a bit long(which was reasonable considering how new the technique still was to her) but Jenn was rather likely to have a bit of fun with how he was reacting to her taking his form. Astos let out another sounds of strangled frustration as he watched 'himself' walk over to the mirrors in a very Jenn-like fashion complete with swinging hips and begin looking over her transformation in the mirrors. "You. have done. very well Jenn. exceptionally well." Astos managed while only twitching slightly, finally receiving an answer Jenn let out a burst of laughter and let her form reshape itself back into her own. "Excellent." She said with a grin as Astos let out a sigh of relief. "You're an evil woman you know that right?" Astos said receiving only a shrug and a smirk for his trouble. "You're certainly not bothered by the concept of the shift so it should remain a simple affair for you to preform future gender shifts. I am happy to say we can move on now to the last two aspects of the technique, these two while separate pair together very well." Astos began causing Jenn to return to a slightly more serious mindset, she was eager to get to this point to be so close to truly having the whole technique complete and only needing to work on perfecting it.
"The last aspects of the technique are technically both the same thing, the first is Species shifting, and the second is the same but into the shapes of species that are not humanlike in here design primarily such as animals they are linked primarily because Animalfolk provide many of the challenges of shifting into an animal but are paired with a more familiar shape allowing the user to have an easier time when they get to animal shifting. Now to be-" "Hold on." Astos was quite surprised to find himself being interrupted by Jenn, up until now she had always actually waited until he had finished his explanation to question something. "Haven't I actually been doing this already? The species shifting thing, I've become YOU already and you're a Human." Jenn asked causing Astos to widen his eyes in realization, it was not often that he was reminded that Jenn wasn't actually Human, even now after all his years on the Lookout it often felt odd to know that there was yet another species of being on Earth int he form of Genies even if they were exceptionally rare. "I.. I suppose you have, that should theoretically make the rest of the work on species shifting easier assuming a Genie isnt exactly identical to a Human." Astos said with a nod, with Jenn's question answered he once again launched into his description of how the requirements and dangers of the shift, ultimately the dangers of a species shift were less pronounced than a size shift due to the amount of work that Jenns own magic would be doing rather than Jenn herself, unless something went catastrophically wrong the worst that should theoretically happen is a painful 'bad shift', thankfully no such shifts occurred over the three days that it took Jenn to get a handle on species shifting, Jenn found she wasn't particularly fond of taking many forms of animal-folk shapes, the strange proportions just didn't feel right to her in most cases.
With species shifting under wraps the duo began work on non-humanoid species shifting, the work for this shift however was very different than the previous aspects. Astos had suggested that they actually leave the Lookout and study some of the animals that Jenn would be shifting into in order for her to earn a better understanding on how they were supposed to move and look, Jenn had been more than willing to go on such an excursion and over the course of the week they made quite a few trips down to the land below the Lookout first studying the various land creature that inhabited the local woodlands, then moving onto the birds that flocked there, and finally exploring a few of the lakes and rivers nearby to study the sea the study of sea life even including Jenn managing to con Astos into a trip to a far off beach in order to further study sea life due to the low diversity in what was available nearby. With Jenn's training technically complete life on the Lookout became much more restful. Astos was at present enjoying relaxing on his own, he had quite enjoyed training and being trained by Jenn but it had been nearly two and a half weeks since they had begun there work and in that time they had not had particularly much downtime and he had forgotten how nice it could be to just do nothing for a bit. Astos raised an eyebrow as he heard the now familiar sound quick but tiny footsteps scurrying in his direction. "Hello Jenn." He said with a half grin as he looked down to find a tiny blue-gray cat that somehow appeared to have a look of disappointment on it's face before slowly transforming into the familiar shape of Jenn's natural form. "How do you always know, do you have you're ears permanently partially shifted into cat ears." Jenn said as she narrowed her eyes, his ears WERE almost always covered by his hair.... "No you're just not particularly stealthy even when you are a cat." Astos said with a laugh earning a look of indignation from Jenn. However with a roll of the eyes Jenn quickly became a bit more serious. "I just wanted to say thanks, not just for the whole technique trade thing but for getting me back to being well... me. I don't know how long I would have stayed like that without you're help." Jenn said sighing heavily as she took a seat next to Astos "You're welcome Jenn, as my father once said 'sometimes the best way to deal with your own problems is to help someone else.' Helping you get back into sorts also went a long way to helping me with dealing with Seikatsu's passing."
~Complete~
Techniques Learned-
Shapeshifting (Humanoid)
After a few moments Jenn can change her shape into that of anyone she had met OR into a completely new form of her own design, she can likewise make adjustments to her basic form as she likes, the shift lasts until Jenn chooses to end it even when she is not actively conscious. Jenn's ability to become someone else does not however impart upon her any more ability to act as they would than she would normally be aware of she will however sound like them. Jenn is even capable of shifting into different species but does not gain the racial benefits of that species(No Zenkai in saiyan form)
Shapeshifting (Non-Humanoid)
An advanced form of Shapeshifting, this addition allows Jenn to take on the forms of non-humanoid beings, primarily these would consist of animals but would likewise allow Jenn to take the form of strange non-humanshape aliens as well provided she took the time to work on the transformation once she became aware that such beings exist.
Potential Forms:
Genie, Human, Animalfolk, Makaioshin, the majority of Earth-based animal life.
Jenn's Prefered Forms
'Human Jenn'
[img width="731" alt="" src="http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/xxebonDf73COrLQqJmim2pu0WSv.jpg" style="max-width:100%;" height="472"]
