Adam and Henry approached the two children slowly. Ellie had her eyes locked on Adam while little Will had gone back to drawing after he quickly dismissed the approaching men.

  “Whatcha drawing?” asked Henry.

  Will turned his big brown eyes up towards Henry before glancing past him towards where Everett was standing in the doorway, looking out over the small portion of campus where the rats had attacked them earlier.

  “Bugs,” he replied.

  Adam and his friend exchanged a quick grin before Henry sat down next to the boy and grabbed a crayon as well, “I knew you were smart,” Henry chuckled, “What's your favorite kind? I have always loved dragonflies.”

  Will’s head whipped up from where he had been drawing a big red ant. An ant that suspiciously looked like it had long black hair. “Dragonflies are cool but ants are da best.”

  And with that, Henry had formed a new best friend. Simply by getting down on his level and connecting with him where he was at, Henry had managed to completely connect with the boy. He quickly nodded to Adam as if to say, go ahead, before diving head over heels into the great Ant vs. Dragonfly debate.

  I wish I was as good with kids as he is, thought Adam. While Henry and Will were having a great time, he and Ellie were… not.

  Ellie hadn’t moved since Adam showed up and while he couldn’t say she was afraid of him, he also couldn’t say she wasn’t.

  Adam moved a couple steps away from her, moving just far enough to the side so that she would hopefully feel like he wasn’t crowding or trapping her in place. His instincts told him that she was uncomfortable with him being too close.

  Of course she’s uncomfortable, you idiot. She’s barely even a teenager going through what is basically the end of the world and she is away from her parents.

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” Adam asked gently. Now, it’s important to note that Adam had absolutely zero experience with kids Ellie's age. Had he been around them? Sure. Were they girls? Absolutely not. The only real experience he had with kids in her age group was from when he helped out a couple times at the dojo that Dante trained at. He had been tasked with helping a small group of ten year old boys get through warm ups and that was it. He had been terrible at it then and he definitely was going to be bad at it now.

  The girl nodded, her sandy blond hair hiding the majority of her face. Her curtain bangs, likely meant to make her look older, highlighted how… small she was. Her dark brown eyes were locked on Adam’s every move. The heavy black sweatshirt she wore, clearly belonging to her dad, did nothing to help hide how small of frame she was.

  The two of them sat in silence for a minute, the only sounds in their vicinity being Henry and Will whose conversation seemed to have moved from talking about bugs to other animals. Well shit… I was hoping she would say something but here goes nothing.

  “Your name is Ellie right?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Do you know why I'm here talking with you?” Adam knew he wasn’t any good at this stuff so he figured he might as well just cut straight to the point.

  She nodded again.

  “Why did you lie to your parents?”

  Ellie stiffened up and for the first time looked away from him. The girl rolled her shoulders in on herself and shrugged, refusing to say anything out loud.

  With her reaction he knew he had messed up and sighed again, “I’m sorry Ellie, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad or anything. I just wanted to know if there was a reason that you kept it to yourself,” he rubbed the back of his head and relaxed back into the back of a folded theater chair, “When all of this happened, it through our world into chaos and I’m sure that was really scary for you, heck, it was scary for me.” Adam spoke to fill the silence between them. “The world has been completely changed and it hasn’t even been a whole day yet. We have seen people d– get hurt, and seen the school we knew so well, changed into something out of a story book.”

  He dipped his head down to try and make eye contact with the young girl again. “Ellie, how old are you?”

  She glanced up from the ground for a second before staring off once again, “Twelve,” she replied.

  Adam nodded, “That makes sense.” He tapped the ground in front of her, once again getting her attention. “Ellie, did you think you would get in trouble when you picked your Pursuit?”

  She chewed on her lower lip, anxiety written all across her face. Her eyes met his once more, “My dad said not to do anything right before the bubble thing showed up, but then when I was in the bubble, it asked me a bunch of questions. I didn’t really know what to do so I just picked the stuff it said I was supposed to be good at… is that bad?”

  “Well, I did the same thing that you did. I wasn’t sure what was happening and I just did my best. Do you think that it was bad for you to make those choices?” Adam asked. Even with such a small amount of discussion, he was beginning to understand her more.

  Ellie was a teacher's kid, and she clearly wanted to do the right thing. Like so many other kids whose parents were teachers, Ellie just wanted to meet her parents, likely her mom’s, expectations. Based on the fact that she was wrapped up in her dad’s sweatshirt, Adam could assume that she was a bit of a daddy's girl, which once again put her choices into perspective. This little girl, and at twelve years old in the apocalypse that is exactly what she was, made a choice that she thought would be good for her simply because something else told her to. Then after making the choice and coming back from the stasis, she felt like she was wrong to have made the decision without her parents input, and now feared the disapproval of her mother and feared that she was going to get in trouble with her dad for not following his instructions to ‘not do anything’.

  Adam tried to smile at her again, “If it means anything to you, I think you made the right decision.”

  She looked at him in confusion, “Really? Why do you think that?”

  Adam stroked his nonexistent beard before saying, “Ellie, when you look at me or Michael, the old guy that was talking with your mom, what were you feeling?”

  She thought for a moment, “You felt… big? I am not sure how to say it. When I first looked at you, I felt like you were heavy, but not in a ‘ow that hurts’ kind of way, more like the way mom’s weighted blanket feels when I steal it from her and dad’s room. The old man felt like he wanted to be my friend.” She furrowed her brow, “It's hard to explain.”

  “So you think I’m heavy?”

  “Yeah, like there is this weight…” panic flashed across her face, “Wait! I'm not saying that I think you're fat or anything!”

  Adam just smiled at her, happy to have gotten any kind of reaction that wasn't despondent. “When I first saw you, I knew that you were like us.”

  She stilled and just stared back at him before tentatively asking, “...have you done the transformation thing yet?” poorly concealed curiosity creeped into her voice.

  “Yes, we both have, and honestly? It’s pretty amazing.” Adam knew he couldn’t lie to this young girl. Being on the Path of the Beast was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, but just as he couldn’t hide the positives, he also couldn’t hide the negatives from her either.

  “Listen Ellie, Michael and I are the only other people like us that we have met so far, so there is a lot that we’re still learning.” He sat forward once more and lowered his voice so that only she could hear what he said next. “We had no idea what would happen the first time we transformed and we figured you hadn't done it yet and so we thought, why not help you with the beginning stages? Would you be okay with that?”

  She sat forward, “Yes!” she exclaimed, earning a glance from her brother who was now play-fighting with Henry, punching the swordsman's raised hands like a little boxer hitting mitts. Ellie blushed, “I mean, yes please.”

  “ Alright. There IS a catch though.” Adam braced himself for some resistance before he continued, “We need to tell your parents that you’re one of the awakened too.”

  The ends of Ellie’s sleeves curled in on themselves for a moment, as if she was squeezing her hands into little fists before they relaxed and she got to her feet. She moved towards where Adam was sitting and looked down at him, “Okay. I’ll tell them,” she crossed her arms in front of herself again, reiterating just how small she was, “Actually, can they stay with me when you guys start teaching me?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry Princess, there is no way we would do this without them. Trust me, we want them there more than you do!” Adam said as he stood up with her. He couldn’t help but notice her scrunched up face when he called her Princess though. Nice, nickname secured.

  Adam led Ellie towards the stairs, nudging Henry as they left, “Be back soon,” he said.

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  Henry, hands up still defending himself from Will’s onslaught of ferocious punches, let out a muffled, “Hurry back!” as he pretended to fight back.

  With a quick nod to Everett, Adam led Ellie down the stairs towards the stage. This time as he descended towards the other survivors, Adam felt a sense of purpose from many of the people. While Chuck, Ellie’s dad, was no longer in the front helping with the dismantling of all usable materials in the room, Emi had taken over. What looked to be five other crafters worked directly under her as the dismantlers while Emi continued to work on crafting some basic weapons. Tang and a couple other survivors had started to catalog all of the materials as well as the limited supply of food they had found, while Dimitri and Shawn, freshly armed with bladed club-sword-things, were dragging a series of rodent bodies through the doors. Looks like the bodies from earlier might be useful, Adam thought as he and Ellie walked up the stairs onto the auditorium stage. Before he had sat with Ellie, Adam had seen Michael lead the girls parents this way, towards the shop in the back where they made the set pieces for the school's theater productions.

  As they walked through the heavy stage curtains, Adam noticed two very distinct things. First, he could easily hear a muffled conversation beyond the rolling garage door that covered the back wall, identifying where Michael and the Bain’s were. As soon as their voices were heard, Ellie locked her eyes on the door that led to them, nerves showing as she slowed her steps for a moment. Without saying anything, the girl took a deep breath and made her way to the door. What a little badass, facing her fears and stuff. Adam grinned as he followed behind her, glancing to the other end of the room towards a long halfway as he did. The second thing he had noticed was a heavy and tantalizing scent that emanated from down the hallway. While he couldn’t say exactly what it was, he felt in the core of his being that whatever was emitting that scent, was delicious. Earlier on, he had learned that all classes in the Gluttony series had specific cravings associated with them and seeing as how he knew that a certain program had brought a series of archaeological materials to YCC, he knew that what he was smelling could only be one thing: bones. Ancient bones. And they smelled delicious.

  With difficulty, Adam pulled himself away from what his stomach desired and walked with Ellie into the shop where Michael and her parents were waiting.

  Four chairs had been pulled together around a small dining table. A scene that would be totally normal if it weren't for the fact that the dining table was hot pink, one of the chairs was a rusted stool, one was a rocking chair, one was a large beanbag and the last one was an old love seat with no cushions. Sitting on the love seat were the Bain’s, while Michael sat in the rocking chair. Adam and Ellie’s entrance caused Marissa, who had been speaking quite animatedly to Michael, to pause. She turned and looked right at Ellie, her face telling Adam all he needed to know.

  Michael had told them.

  Marissa was not happy.

  Adam felt Ellie begin to wither under the frank stare from her mother as the girls father stood up and quietly walked to them.

  He walked right up to Ellie and crouched down before her.

  Chuck was a big man with a tough exterior, but the gentleness in his voice as he spoke to his daughter showed that he was way softer on the inside then his exterior might lead you to believe.

  “Baby, why didn’t you tell us?” he asked.

  Ellie’s eyes dropped down to the ground as tears started to fall, “*sniff*I thought you would be mad at me cause I didn't listen…*sniff*” and with that, the flood gates opened.

  Moments later, her mom rushed to join her husband and daughter as she too cried and they talked. Adam moved to the side and sat beside Michael as the family started talking amongst themselves, Ellie explaining herself and her choices, her parents listening and trying to convince her that she didn’t need to hide this from them.

  Marissa’s original look showed that wasn’t happy with her daughter awakening and keeping it secret from them, but the unhappiness stemmed from a sense of fear and the desire to protect her child. No parent wants their child to be in danger and with so many aspects of the system being unknown, it makes sense for a parent to be concerned when they don’t know what it can do to their kid.

  As they talked Michael and Adam quietly got caught up with each other and how their separate conversations went. Adam telling Michael that he had agreed to have the two of them help her with her abilities, while Michael told Adam that he had explained what the abilities could do and what they might need to look out for in the future. Despite being only a couple hours into this mess, The two men were the Bain’s best chance at helping their daughter so they gladly accepted their help.

  Minutes later, they all sat around the small table as they discussed what to do next. Now that her parents were in the know, Ellie was far more vocal and she spoke up, “What happens when I use my transformation skill?”

  Michael, who had taken the lead in the discussion, responded, “While we could try and explain everything to you, I think a demonstration would be best.” He looked at Adam before shaking his head, “With the focus of my abilities, I think that I would be the best demonstration.” And with that, he stood and moved to an open area.

  At this point, Adam remembered a very important detail. He turned to the Bain’s, “There is one very unfortunate problem we have come across so far. When we initiate the transformation, our bodies change shape, but our clothing does not,” he gestured to Michael’s toga and his own kilt-like wrapping, “so, Marissa and Ellie, if you could please cover your eyes for a moment.”

  Ellie spun around so fast, the stool she was sitting on screeched as it ripped across the floor. Her bright red ears denoting just how embarrassed she was, while Marissa coughed and covered her eyes.

  “Good catch, Adam. That would have been supremely embarrassing. Don’t worry though, I will let you know when you may turn around again.” As he finished his statement, he untied his toga and triggered his transformation.

  This was the first time that Adam had been able to fully focus on the transformation, allowing for him to watch as Michael's form exploded with black and white fur. As the fur sprouted from his body, he instantly grew in size while he tilted forward onto all fours as his face elongated into a wide canine muzzle full of sharp teeth. His arms bulged outwards into muscular limbs with fin-like protrusions along them, capped with viciously clawed paws. The biggest and most majestic portion of this new form was definitely the fur covered fluke that wrapped around his now sitting form, resting on the ground before his paws.

  “Holy shi–”

  “Language, Chuck!”

  “Honey, open your eyes and tell me this isn’t worth a ten in the swear jar.”

  A voice rung out through the minds of all the people gathered, “You may turn around now, I’m ‘decent’”

  Marissa and Ellie turned around and stared slack jawed.

  “Holy shit” said Ellie, her mother not even realizing that the phrase came from her daughter.

  Michael turned his icy blue eyes to look at Ellie.

  “When I first activated my Bestial Transformation skill, I changed into an oversized white wolf. As you can see, I am no longer the same as I was. When someone on our path gains their class, there is a chance for our Physique to change to better connect with our class. Unfortunately we don’t know much else beyond this, however there are two things to keep in mind.” He turned his large head to show that he was speaking to all of them in turn, “Firstly, the first transformation takes a couple seconds to complete and it also is fairly painful. While I can’t speak for Adam here, I can say that my own transformations no longer cause much pain, rather, I feel a mild discomfort during the process.”

  Adam nodded along with the statement, agreeing with his assessment.

  “Secondly, I couldn’t speak while in my beast form until after I gained my class.”

  Chuck spoke up, “Does that mean you were unintelligent in your beast form before?”

  “No, not at all,” Adam responded for Michael, “While we are transformed, our bodies are just physically incapable of producing speech so we were unable to talk. Our brains are the same in both forms, we were just unable to talk.” He gestured to Michael, “Now, this guy has an ability that allows him to talk to people telepathically while in his beast form. I still can’t, though I can communicate with him via our thoughts while we are both transformed.”

  While Ellie had initially been standoffish upon seeing Michael, she now walked towards him with excitement. Adam assumed that Michael could read her thoughts as he laid down so that she could better approach him. She walked straight up to him and instantly tried to pet him.

  “Ellie! Don’t pet him!” called her mother in horror.

  “It’s quite alright, Marissa. I imagine I too would have wanted to pet a large animal at her age. Especially if I knew it wouldn’t bite me.” While Michael’s voice was normally a smooth and even tone, his mental communications carried hints of emotions and feeling alongside the words and based on what Adam got from Michael, the old man found Ellie’s actions quite endearing.

  Ellie quickly turned to her parents and with a gleam in her eye said, “I wanna do it now. Maybe I’ll turn into a big cat or something!”

  Her dad let out a rumbling laugh before turning serious, “That would be amazing sweetie, but just remember, they didn’t know what they would turn into when they first used the skill. Ellie, there is a chance that you could turn into something that you aren’t expecting.” Chuck watched as his daughter deflated. He walked up and ruffled the hair on top of her head, “What is the absolute worst thing you could turn into?”

  “A worm,” she instantly replied.

  “Okay. Well just in case you turn into something that is not a cat, just remember that it’s better than a worm, alright?”

  Ellie’s face went pale, “Dad, what if… I turn into a worm?” she asked in horror.

  “Then you will be the cutest and best worm in the world.”

  With that incredibly cute and mildly ominous conversation out of the way, Adam, Michael and Chuck turned and faced away from Ellie and Marissa. They had decided earlier that when she first transformed, everyone would turn away and Marissa would stand between them with Michael’s toga held up as a makeshift privacy barrier.

  “Marissa, be sure to step away after she starts to transform. Adam and I will grow exponentially when we change so there is a chance that Ellie will as well. Be careful. Also, Ellie, if you think in my direction, I will be able to understand you, so let me know when your transformation is complete.”

  “Okay,” said the young girl, “Here I go.”

  Then she triggered the skill.

  Facing away from her, Chuck, Adam and Michael all listened as snapping sounds and grunts filled the air, followed by the sound of scratching and squealing. The sound was similar to when Ellie had spun the stool around earlier, scraping the stool leg along the ground.

  Roughly thirty seconds later, they heard Marissa breathe out, “Oh honey… you’re…”

  “She’s done,” said Michael, “she says we can turn around and says that we are not allowed to make fun of her.”

  Curiosity overtook Adam just as concern overtook Chuck, both of them turning around as Marissa finished her drawn out thought.

  “... beautiful.”

  And there, before Marissa was a beast whose body was roughly five feet long covered in soft grey brown fur that covered a thin snout, four paws and a soft underbelly. Sprouting from the top of her head all the way down to the tip of her barely too long tail, were charcoal grey spikes. More accurately, quills. Ellie, had turned into… a hedgehog.