By the third day of training, Cattleya has advanced to actually creating lightning. Unguided, weak, and pulsating rather than a continuous flow... but lightning none the less.
After a brief break so that you could sign the paperwork for Ironwood's newly arrived shipment and instruct the workers on how to prepare their assigned potions, you return to find that the woman has dragged a newly awakened Louise outside to help her.
"This is too hard! You really mastered this in a couple hours?" The elder pinkette asked the younger.
Pride stoked, Louise replied in a self-satisfied tone, "It is a little difficult, I guess."
"Isn't there some kind of trick you can teach me? I don't want it to backfire again and Cynric just keeps shocking me when I ask for help!"
"I shock you because it will help you understand how the spell is supposed to feel." You clarify. "As for you, Louise, did we forget that you nearly killed yourself when you overpowered the spell?"
The little pinkette opens her mouth to protest, but a stern look from you has her nodding as you gestured for her to follow. Walking into the kwama mine with the crestfallen girl, you lead her to a side chamber and Muffle the door to prevent eavesdropping. More serious upon recognizing the spell, your apprentice stiffens.
"What happened?"
Louise looks as if she is about to act innocent, but obviously thinks better of it as she regales you with the events of the other night. What started as her attempt to subtly help Ironwood and Penny defend Vale from some foreign mage had escalated to a citywide panic that spurred a Grimm incursion. You concur with Louise's assessment that the Grimm attack was this Fall woman's goal or part of it since she wasted no time infiltrating Beacon's depths during the chaos... which was where things got murky.
Counting Cinder and Ozpin, that left the third magical resonance you'd felt in Vale as an unknown at Beacon, but you'd been unable to find them in your brief visits. Apparently Louise had identified them while chasing Fall and Ozpin had been up to rather more nefarious activities than he let on... or Louise was mistaken about what she saw.
For all her intelligence, your apprentice has always been rather limited by her seeming inability to second guess her assumptions about things she doesn't understand. Unfortunately you will have to take her at her word since the only other person who might know would be Ironwood, but you can't exactly ask without raising suspicion.
"So then I used as much magicka as I could to blow them up." Louise finished confusingly.
"Are you telling me that you killed all three of them?"
Hesitantly, she nodded. "I didn't have a choice. I couldn't rescue the girl while those two were there, not without drawing whoever won back here!"
"I am not concerned about that, what about Ozpin?" You insist.
"I saw him explode as I left." Louise answers, perplexed.
If that's true, then why can you still feel the resonance from his magicka coming from far to the East?
"I did it!" Cattleya shouts as she barges through the door, which rebounds silently off the wall.
It isn't as if Ozpin being alive is news, this is just confirmation that Louise actually is responsible and the local wizard is likely none to pleased with the two of you. The best course of action other than simply leaving would be to either continue turning public opinion against the former headmaster or switch allegiances to that Salem woman he mentioned being his foe... or both. Wanting to keep a secret of any and all knowledge that Louise is the one who destroyed Vale, you put aside the worrisome information for now. "Show me."
The uncontrolled shower of Sparks Cattleya unleashes is a definite improvement in power and steadiness of output, but it is entirely undirected as it arcs off every surface not protected by the hasty Wards erected by you and Louise.
"I will be attending to the alchemical disaster that is no doubt waiting for me aboard the ship. Louise, shock her anytime she tries to quit practicing."
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"Say what you will about people naturally being greedy, the situation in Vale is showing anything but. During a recent interview, General James Ironwood stated, 'What happened at Beacon is a tragedy, not just for Vale or for those who lost loved ones, but for humanity as a whole. For decades we've slowly pushed back the tide of darkness and carved out a foothold for ourselves. A real, substantial peace for all who live within the walls of our great kingdoms. Through hard work and cooperation, Humanity as a whole have grown strong... but the destruction of Beacon is something that will have far reaching effects. Mistral's farmlands cannot meet global requirements and, no offense intended, Menagerie can hardly support their own people's needs. With neither Sanus or Sol-"
"How is that not offensive?" Copal practically shrieked from her seat at the bar in Mistral.
Jup just shrugged. "Meh, it's not like he's wrong."
"Don't side with him!"
"Will you two shut up?" Donn sighed, wishing once more that he wasn't stuck waiting for Asena's 'delivery'. "I'm trying to listen."
"-ite what I just said, all is not lost! It is in times like these that we must rise to the occasion! We must put aside our problems, our differences, our petty disagreements and do what is best for all of us! Already we have council members installing plumbing, cargo freight captains volunteering their vessels to carry supplies free of charge, Hunstmen and Huntresses tending to the sick and elderly. If you'll recall Louise Vallière from the tournament; her friends and family at Kwama Korp are all recent refugees themselves, yet they are going above and beyond what could be reasonably expected of them. We don't know what caused the explosion at Beacon and we don't know just how this will affect the future of Remnant, but I have hope that we can come together in this time of crisis and help our fellow man.'"
"In light of recent events, Vale businessman Cynric Tyne appears to have taken it upon himself to mitigate the effects of the mysterious explosion that destroyed Beacon. From directly rescuing those trapped by falling debris, to jump-starting the reconstruction of food production, convincing members of the White Fang to lay down their arms and help, and even going so far as to pioneer a new miracle drug to cope with the mountain of medical issues caused by the blast; it's starting to look like there's nothing he can't do! Not satisfied with just helping in his own backyard, Mr. Tyne has also been working alongside the Atlas military and SDC in distributing food to Sanus and Solitas, who have already begun rationing for the shortages in the coming year."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait..." Jup called out, hopping up onto the bar to point at someone on the screen. "That's our puppy!"
Sure enough, the 'White Fang members' moving rubble in the shaky footage were Asena and her new girlfriend or whatever she was. Since the wolf-faunus had sent word of her success days ago, it wasn't like what she was doing would impede her mission... but what kind of magic did Paty do to get the most reticent woman he'd ever known volunteer to help a human city?! To make things weirder, nobody seemed to care about the Ursa being led through the streets by a little girl who he could have sworn he'd seen somewhere.
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Using the leftover crate from Ironwood's potion delivery the next day, you have been making Cattleya exhaust her beast side by filling it with rubble. Each time the crate is full, she has to drag it to where the Atlessian aircraft are working to carry it away. An entire plateau is a lot of stone even before including the ruined buildings and since the debris is being dumped into the shallow waters north of the harbor, plans are already being drawn up to use it as a base for a new bridge to Patch island.
Regardless of the construction efforts or the land you intend to reserve for a more official mine on the island, the effort is tiring even for the ordinarily inexhaustible werebear. She'll be experiencing intense hunger pains later, but that is for her to worry about. What matters to you is that once she reaches the point of being forced to revert to human form, you've instructed her to put all her willpower toward keeping one arm in bear form. It will likely take dozens of attempts for her to learn each portion of her body, but the rewards will be worth it.
Shifting her legs when speed or jumping power are needed, arms and back combined to grant strength that can tear steel like paper, suddenly turning her head bestial to deliver a powerful bite; Partial transformation means that she will be much more capable of responding to various situations where full transformation is either unnecessary or impractical. Better yet, if she completely masters full
and partial transformation, it isn't impossible that she could move on to other beast forms and more tantalizing is the fact that combining disparate features isn't impossible. Difficult in the extreme, but not impossible.
Status: Healthy
Magicka: (650/650)
While Cattleya suffers practices:
[] Teach Louise something-
-[] Write in.
[] Inquire about the state of the possessed automaton, you had been hoping to study it.
[] Speak with your more prominent minions to see if they have any thoughts on what could be done to speed up recovery.
[] Write in.
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A/N: I would have had this out sooner, but I fell asleep typing it Saturday night and my laptop lost power... so I had to retype it all. 4 days until ship completion.
, and (specific to this board) 
. The regular thinking emoji also works elsewhere but this board appears to have it blacklisted (even though it has the ms paint variant as a custom).
