My Werepanther System: Starting with Nine Lives

Rex was fitted with a new Mana Stone and Martial-Skin— which put him at a negative balance and then left to join the others.

They were back in the jungles, occupying a bulldozed clearing topped by a steel obstacle course with improvised rooms, barricades, training weapons, weight rooms and wrestling mats.

They stood over the wrestling mats— the only place with enough open space to house the fifty two remaining Inheritence Ability users.

Among them, Rex, Natasha, Victor, Syrus, and the heavyset mind reader stood.

Victor turned to Rex as they stood in formation, "Wait— why the hell was Tyson in the showers with us? He's not an Inheritence Ability user."

Rex shrugged, "Maybe he's lonely. After his scales incident, people probably don't talk to him."

"Shut-up! If we have to do push-ups cause you two can't stop gossiping, I'll strangle you with a fire-spitting dandelion!" Natasha hissed from behind them.

Rex turned around.

Natasha shrank under his gaze, seemingly remembering when he hunted her in the very same jungles hours before.

"I need to keep her away from the glasses guy." Rex thought.

Natasha squirmed under his gaze. In the light of early morning, he could finally better make out her features.

She was a tall wispy young woman. She had Imani's height but lacked the curves— even with her green veined martial-skin suit hugging her frame. She had curly red hair and sunkissed skin. Her matching colored eyebrows were wild and unkempt. Like weeds or flower petals to frame her dark green eyes. It was then that he noticed even her eyelashes were red.

"Ok— I'm sorry. Just…. Stop looking at me!" Natasha said.

"My bad." Rex turned around.

Victor eyed him with confusion before a whistling sound had them all looking up at the sky.

A grey metal shape sailed through the air. Even if Rex couldn't smell the napalm and hear the mechanical gears beneath the steel shell, he would've known it was a missile.

And it was headed straight for their formation.

Everyone's baseline military training instilled since childhood kicked into high-gear.

"INCOMING!" Everyone yelled before breaking formation to take cover.

At least that should've been the response. That's what most recruits did.

As Rex ran, he saw Victor ascend with a powerful leap, flowing gold dust as his elixirous fire took him over. He looked like a god with his martial skin hugging his massive muscles and brilliantly oiled and jeweled dreads flowing. The gold flames were little more than special affects to the main attraction in those moments.

He caught the missile in a bear hug, healing the broken ribs upon impact instantly with his golden tiger flames.

From there, he descended.

An unsteady blue bubble formed around him— a force field of knitted and solidified ambient mana that encased both him and the missile to protect everyone else.

It wasn't enough.

"Natasha!" Rex yelled as he burned the grass grounds surrounding the steel field.

Ashes remained.

From them, the red haired girl brought a new wave of growth that crawled over the obstacle course and made a verdant bed for Victor to fall on.

Victor— encased in a magic forcefield with a missile in his arms, hit the grass grounds hard.

Rex cringed as he awaited an explosion for a tense series of milliseconds. The boom never came.

"It's a dud. Or programmed from The Box by a pilot or artilleryman." Rex turned away from Victor and the bubble and began looking among the hidden recruits.

Less with his eyes and more with his other senses. His suit tightened and shifted in response to the internal changes.

Something potent and pungent rode the winds— different from everything else, as it wafted from the other side of a nearby barricade that would've originally been used as a firing location.

"What is that smell?"

"Malice." Panther said in his mind.

"Right." Rex took off as the other students remained on standby.

With a single jump after two steps, he cleared the distance between himself and the barricade, landing soundlessly on the other side.

A recruit had his back facing Rex. He was rail-thin like Syrus but he lacked the height. The veins in his martial-skin glimmered blue as he used his Inheritence Ability.

"Remove the shield." Rex said.

"Wha— no, it's an active b—"

Rex grabbed the recruit by the head and slammed him against the steel barricade. It did nothing the first time, leaving the sound of his head bouncing off the steel to fracture the jungle silence.

Rex didn't wait for the recruit to react out of his stunned state and continued slamming him against the barricade until he saw the force field warble and pop.

Victor got up and moved away from the missile.

For a moment they shared a glance as all the other Inheritence Ability users stepped out. They didn't need to speak words. It was obvious.

"Just like the glasses kid said, they're trying to kill us— even when any of them could die at any second, they're trying to take us out at every opprotunity. It's like a fucking impulse. The kid saw a missile and immediately tried evaporating Victor." Rex thought.

"Well, that was heroic." Syrus said as he stood by Victor.

"Was it?" Victor asked as he looked away from Rex.

"Sure. It was as heroic as Rex's actions were." Syrus said. A Wolfish smile parted his lips as he observed the other students reactions. A blend of discomfort and outright offense.

They seemed to be plotting on Victor in that specific moment.

"Was the missile from another recruit? I should track the scent. If I get answers I can see the next attempt coming, maybe I can handle the weasel before the instructor gets here. We're all on deathwatch anyway." Rex dropped the unconscious recruit when a whistle blew from deeper in the jungle.

"Come on... you guys have superpowers. Only two of you acted like it." A man came out of the jungle density sounding sleep deprived and disinterested at the same time.

"But were soldiers in training, sir. We're not supposed to try to be heroes. Heroes die for nothing." Someone said.

"You're supersoldiers. Aka heroes with a license to kill and a camera to galvanize. You're not a normal soldier, making you act like it is the dumbest concept ever... like literally. It's a waste of funds and Mana Grafting. If you have the power to catch a missile, go catch it, understood?"

"Yes sir."

A silence spread as they all watched the man. He wasn't of typical military ilk. He was disheveled. Scruffy facial hair going grey covered his jaw. His long hair was tied up in a messy bun, the top half of his martial-skin was unzipped and tied around his waist. He was covered in old tattoos of constellations and astral biomes.

"Oh, yea... my name is Staff-Sergeant Dream. I'll be teaching you how to effectively use your abilities and be the good investments the Alpha….*yawn* General wants you to be. Some of you already show more promise thsn others. Some of you….. are interesting. Is he dead?" He pointed to Rex standing over the unconscious Recruit.

"No." Rex replied.

"Good, get him up. We warm up with sparring, your partner is the closest person next to you. But first, I have gifts." Staff Sergeant Dream walked off and came back with a leather bag.

He walked among the recruits, pulling out a smart phone for each to have.

"As Inheritence Ability users, you are the flashy new toy of the military. You're an IP meant to resemble your ancestor ability users and carry the power further. You'll motivate others to join— to be like you, through curated videos posted to your social medias. Every post that goes viral gets you a discount on military gear. Every brand deal gets a discount on weapons and vehicles. I'm sure most of you are already verified and have pr managers so this shouldn't be anything new to you."

He handed Rex a smartphone. "….Right?"

Staff-Sergeant Dream's eyebags were like makeup.

"I have no idea what you just said." Rex said.

Staff-Sergeant Dream fell asleep. Standing up.

A wave of warmth brushed past him.

He shivered and watched as fingerprint outlines glimmered on the unconscious Recruits martial-skin as he lay unconscious beneath Rex.

His suit lit up once and he was waking up with dried blood on the side of his face.

Staff-Sergeant woke up with a snort, "He'll tell you all about your media obligations while you two spar..... *yaaaaawn* have fun. I'm sure you two will be great brothers in legs— arms, I mean."

Rex looked from the instructor who may have just astrally projected to the recruit who defintely just tried to kill his friend on the fly.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with."

Rex let his jungle-fire cloak his hands, "Ignorance is bliss."

"So is strength."

Rex's flames shrank and were snuffed out as the recruit reshaped the mana empowering his element.

"Ah hell. I should've just killed you."