Chapter 17 The advantages of being friends with a panther 2 (1/2)

the next day as the sun was rising Mars was chewing on some stale roasted bear meat as he made the decision to burn the remaining bear meat to ash and looked over at Victoria that was lazing around on the bear hide that functioned as their bed

”lets go hunting today Victoria”

as soon as Mars said 'hunting' Victoria shoot up from the bear hide as her horns flashed while she looked at him with sparkling eyes

”hunting... fun”

looking at the excited panther Mars also got a little fired up

”then lets go... or not, give me a minute i need to make something first”

with Victoria impatiently pacing in front of him as her horns flashed telling him to get a move on Mars made a simple belt out of bear hide to sheath his sword, after securing his bone sword in his new belt he looked over at the impatient Victoria and gave her a teasing smile

”now we can go”

as Mars was walking out of the cave Victoria shoot past him like a black missile into the undergrowth of the forest seeing this Mars also broke into a run after her as he transformed into his half dragon from to gain more speed

”hey wait for me!”

agilely running through the forest Mars quickly got tired of jumping over roots from old trees that looked more like 1 meter tall wood fences than roots and avoiding brushes with thorns that was hard as metal, he sat off from the ground and landed on a branch quickly jumping to the next tree using his claws to climb up to the crown of the tree where the branches was denser Mars began to jump from tree to tree as he followed the presence of Victoria he could feel though their contract

”...where is she going?”

after moving in the top of the almost 50 meter tall trees with breakneck speed while fulfilling a childhood dream of imitating a certain man that was raised by gorillas for more than 15 kilometers he still had not caught op with Victoria

”oh she stopped moving”

sensing that the panther had stopped Mars started to move down from the top of the trees while he got closer to Victoria, until he saw her sitting neatly with her tail rolled around he feet on a giant tree root with a slightly smug expression while she was licking her paw

”yes yes i know i am slow”

as Mars landed in front of Victoria while admitting defeat he reached his hand op to pat her on the head to praise her

”but how are you so f---”

as his hand reached Victoria's head to pat her Mars felt something wrong as his hand passed through her head as her body turned into a dark mist as soon as he touched her

”what the ****!?”

Mars understandably more than a little confused stumbled backwards and almost feel over but he did not notice a shadow separated from the others and moved from the side of the root slowly crawling up behind him

”hey where are you Victoria?”

as Mars was still confused and looked around as the shadow that was now less than 3 meters behind him seemed to open op as Victoria jumped out of the shadow landing silently on the tree root before she pounced on him from behind pushing him down to the ground with her front paws as she landed on his back and bit at his neck

”ouch!”

”caught... Mars”

being pushed down to the ground and landing on his face Mars momentarily panicked before hearing the usual cold feminine voice in his head now sounded a little playful he realized that he had been had by Victoria as he felt her teeth lightly around his neck he raised his hands

”you got me”

as soon as he admitted defeat Victoria let go off his neck and jumped off his back while purring happily as she walked around him with a proud face as Mars raised himself off the root and sat op and looked at her while rubbing the back of his neck

”well you got me good... but how did you do that?”

as she was still walking around proudly while purring happily Victoria sat down in front of Mars as her fur seemed to start glowing softly with a dark light as a dark mist came out from her fur and formed a lifelike copy of her that sat down right next to her

”...that's amazing”

standing up Mars walked over to the life like clone Victoria had made in less than 5 seconds and studied it closely, finding that it looked completely like Victoria except for the eyes that had turned from a bright blue color into a slightly darker blue, finished inspecting the shadow decoy Mars petted the real Victoria on the head

”well this certainly is something, but how did you get behind me?”

”like... this”