2020.08.03 - Cutscene: No Pain, No Gain

*Jason teaches Jessie how to werewolf. The hard way.*

Training Montage

Olympic Forest, near La Push

The woods, not far from the river where Jessie was found actually, it's where he's running, in the same form he was on the night he was found. He had just learned to phase between wolf and human form, and so it is that the midnight blue wolf is running, and on a similar path to what he was that night. But he's...not fully coordinated. When he was running that night, he was fully wolf, mindless, and so his running was perfectly that of the wolf. This time, his human mind is playing a part. So he's unsteady, his legs not working the way they should, and then, being so focused on his lack of coordination, he trips over the roots of a rather large tree, sending his head crashing into the trunk.

Running alongside of him is a black wolf. A European wolf, for those paying attention to such details. The black beast is large for its kind and far more graceful than the wolf it keeps pace with. Skidding to a halt when the other falls, it snags the midnight blue wolf by its scruff and hauls it back to its feet. If a wolf could sigh it would, but a wolf can roll its eyes, and it does.

\*       \*       \*
Meditation is an art that Jessie was already familiar with. Not good, but familiar, he had used it before, and Jason wants him to use it now. But he keeps trying to antagonize him, distract him, to form his concentration into something unbreakable. And it's not working. Every time Jessie begins to focus there's something else to distract him, and each time, he's a bit more frustrated, eventually unable to focus at all, when his eyes start to glow. As time goes on his eyes turn red, and eventually he shifts into a phase he's never shifted to before, growing larger, growing claws and fangs, but stopping at wolfman, never making it to man-wolf. But since this is a new phase for him, this also leaves him mindless.

Well, in fairness, Jason mused, had someone hit him with a throwing dart to, well, parts unmentionable, he would likely phase as well, intent on bloody retribution. In his case, though, it would be quite intentional. However, Jessie still had a lot to learn about concentration and not turning into a ravenous beast when he had a setback or an injury. It took little enough effort to restrain, much more unfortunately to train. But well, wolfman--believe it or not, this was progress.

\*       \*       \*
Agility, speed, and strength in human form, being less afraid of danger. That's probably what Jason was aiming for in this exercise, to climb trees. Big trees. With branches too far apart to reach without jumping. Jessie has done...okay. Not great, but okay. Until he's on a particularly high branch and trying to reach a considerably higher branch of another tree. "Fuck," he mutters, looking up, his legs shaking. He's even more scared now than he was on the ninja course, a bit higher up, too, so he crouches and leaps for the next branch. Except...he doesn't give that leap enough strength. He's nervous, and it's screwing him up. When he realizes this, he tries to aim for the branch he was on but misses and falls, crashing through the branches below him, very ungracefully, and finally ending up on the ground below, fairly scratched up. "Ouch," he mutters.

The light thump, barely a muffled sound on the loamy forest floor, signals Jason has dropped down, landing in a crouch next to Jessie. "If someone too scared to make the jump falls in the forest and nobody interested is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Apparently. Yes. Yes, it does. Again."

\*       \*       \*
Jessie's running through the woods again. He's already proven much better in his wolf form, more coordinated, more confident on his paws, but now he's in wolfman form. He's been trained not to be mindless in this phase as well, and he's definitely more confident on two legs than four, at least for the moment. Jason's taken the lead this time, and so Jessie simply follows. Until they come to a fairly narrow ravine. A human could never, ever, in a million years make the jump, but Jason certainly does. Jessie...doesn't, skidding to a stop and staring down into the ravine, clearly nervous, mouth agape. He's not going to be able to do that--not yet, probably.

Jason jogs back to the edge of the other side, his voice slightly guttural as he calls across the ravine. "I will count to five. At that point you are either over here." He pointed next to himself. "Down there." He pointed to the distant bottom of the ravine. "Or I will be over there. To throw you one way or the other. Five. Four. Three...." On the plus side, it wasn't that deep a ravine, and Jessie did heal quickly.

\*       \*       \*
Back to meditation, which Jessie has fortunately improved on. This time, he's able to concentrate and focus, even when Jason is attempting to distract him. Some of the bigger distractions do get to him, but he's able to grit his teeth and keep concentrating. It's still proving tough, and it shows, but he's nowhere near as frustrated as last time. And this time, when Jason aims that dart at him and throws, he catches it while still focusing.

Jason arches an eyebrow when Jessie catches the dart. His slight, slow nod would seem to indicate a measure of approval. But, long before it can go to Jessie's head, the dart breaks. Itching powder. Something alchemical of his own devising. With a shrug Jason sighs. "Too bad. I was hoping to see man-wolf this time. Oh, well."

\*       \*       \*
This exercise is in human form to prove that, even in that form, Jessie is something more. Unfortunately, Jessie still doesn't think so. He's relying too much on human instinct. He's actually doing worse than he was before. He's even more cautious now and can't even make it nearly as high as he was before, only ten or fifteen feet off the ground, and not climbing any higher. And his fear is getting the best of him. He's unsteady, uncoordinated, but at least when he finally falls, it's less painful. And yes, he does fall, missing a jump that even a human could've made easily, and once again he's crashing through the branches and landing, crumpled, on the ground.

There is a snarl of annoyance, and then the tree Jessie fell out of falls *on* him, shattered through some inhuman strength at the base. Jason, however, is gone, leaving the younger wolf to find a way out from under the fallen tree on his own. Teacher is pissed off at the lack of progress, it would seem.

Jessie had a feeling he was in for it big this time. The tree being on him, well that hurt. But not as much as his pride. He'd managed to slither out eventually, but his jean shorts--he wore no shirts during training--were pretty much shredded. He decided he would hide out in the woods for a couple hours, he knew how to get back to the house, and figured he would find Jason there. But eventually he knew he had to go back, and so, as the mid-afternoon sun started its downward trend into late afternoon, Jessie finally made his way back to the clearing where the house, his new home, stood.

Jason Christopher was outside, shirtless himself and chopping wood for the fireplace. The stack of split wood seemed to suggest he was working out some annoyance, or perhaps outright anger. He tenses as Jessie slowly comes into the area, aware of him through his scent. Among them, fear. It made his teeth grind. "You are a werewolf. Not a human being. Not any longer. You will learn that, if I have to go to extremes to make it so."

That definitely made Jessie more fearful. "What...kind of extremes?" he asks, slowly approaching Jason, shaking slightly. By his expression he knows, he knows he really, really, really screwed up this time, and this time, he's really in for it.

The axe flashes in an arc, though not the edged side, as that might have cost Jessie a limb. He'd heal, but it was longer than Jason felt like waiting. It landed forcefully in the side of his head. Before he could hit the ground Jason's claws raked through him, chest to shoulder, before finding purchase under his collarbone, dragging him to the back of the house, to the edge of the cliff. "I am sorry you are forcing this extreme." He was surprised on some level that it was the truth. Semi-retirement had made him softer, it seemed. Holding Jessie up to his face he said simply, "I expect you back before dark. Don't disappoint me. There are taller cliffs." Then he pitches Jessie over the edge, to vanish among the rocks and water below at the base of the waterfall.

That was an extreme, all right. The pain was real. All of it, very real. But there Jessie found himself, at the bottom of a cliff, several bones broken, his clothes useless--but not dead. He finally made it back to the house within a couple of hours, just in time for dinner, in fact, fully healed and rather amazed. He wasn't dead. He could survive the extreme. This would later show in his performance, especially as a human. He would learn to take more risks, be unafraid to fall and get hurt, because he healed from even that tumble that would've at least seriously, if not critically injured a human, maybe even killed them, and when he returned to the house his skin was unmarked.