The large black panther only roared back at Angelia in response. It locked its bloodl.u.s.t onto the large bird and the little girl on its back as it readied itself for combat.Angelia didn"t mind the immense ferocity that the panther was directing at her, she instead giggle in delight and cutely roared back.
"Hihihi~ raawwwrrr~!"
"!"
The panther was a little startled at the puny roar and it only turned to look at the adorable little girl who was now slowly climbing down from the Sky Monarch"s back.
Chi obviously didn"t want her to go down so it blocked her way with its wings, but Angelia only rea.s.sured it that nothing was going to happen to her. They were only words coming from her Master, but Chi relented because for some reason. It had a feeling that everything would indeed go as what the little girl said.
Once Angelia landed on the ground, she immediately began to walk towards the large black panther. The monster only roared back at the girl ferociously, but this didn"t cause Angelia to falter one bit.
She continued to approach the panther with her hand outstretched. The monster continued to roar and slowly back away from the small girl. If it wanted to, it could have just pounce onto her and immediately tear the little girl"s head off, but for some reason, it was reluctant to do so.
It could sense a warm and gentle energy radiating off of the girl"s body and it was more inclined to let the small girl get closer to it. Eventually, it stopped backing away and only growled lowly at the girl.
Seeing as the panther wasn"t as hostile as it was before, Angelia stopped just a short distance away from the large monster and say, "It"s okay, come here, I won"t hurt you!"
Hearing her words, the panther began to inch closer and closer to her. The large nose began to sniff around Angelia"s small hand for a bit before the panther licked it and s...o...b..red her hand with saliva.
"Ahahaha, ew~ that was gross!"
Angelia laughed cheerfully when she knew that she had finally gained the monsters trust. It was like this the first time she encountered Chi. At the time, Chi was heavily wounded, but it was screeching and crying out at her ferociously, but not long after it was acting pretty obedient to the point where it let her pet it.
Angelia quickly took out a handkerchief from her pocket and immediately cleaned up her hand. She quickly tossed it away before she began stroking the large head of the monster in front of her.
The panther lied down on the ground and let the little girl pet it. Angelia began walking around its large frame and traced the large wounds that were all over its body. She could see that while many of them had long since closed and healed only leaving behind a frightening scar, there were some wounds that looked like they were just recently created.
The black panther in front of her had probably just finished hunting or battling with another monster before it started resting here on the large rock.
"Okay, I"m going to heal you now, so stay still!"
As if it understood what the little girl was saying, the black panther lowered its large head and relaxed its body, laying there without moving at all. The only thing moving was its tail which was slowly waving back and forth.
Seeing the obedient panther, Angelia giggled and nodded in satisfaction. She immediately tried to feel out that unique power inside of her and tried to bring it out like she usually did.
Her hands started glowing and a warm energy began emitting from them. They flowed into the large panther and slowly, the new wounds it had received closed and began to heal up.
After 5 minutes of channeling this energy into the monster, Angelia grew exhausted and stopped. She looked at the monster and saw that all the recent wounds and some of its old wounds had healed up.
She was happy to see that the large "kitty" was healed and patches of its once scarred body had been replaced with a thin layer of fur. There was only a large scar on its eye that hadn"t yet healed up and a couple of scar on its tail that had only been lightly mended.
Angelia was a little dissatisfied, but she couldn"t muster up any more strength to continue healing the kitty.
"I can finish healing you later! Do you want to come with me?"
The panther gave a low roar of agreement and this earned it a bright smile from the little girl.
"Can you turn small? Chi will take us back home, but my daddy and my family will probably be scared if they see you this big!"
The panther grunted before it poked its large claw on Angelia"s arm, drawing a little bit of the girl"s blood.
"Ouch!"
"Grrr..."
The wound immediately began closing and the drop of blood on the panther"s claw rose in the air and it flew into the panther"s mouth. After a moment, it let out a large roar as its body slowly began to glow.
When the light subsided, a small cat walked up to Angelia"s feet and it slowly climbed up onto her head. The black cat a scar on its face and there were multiple shallow scars on its tail. Angelia immediately knew that it was the new friend that she had just made earlier.
"How come the two of you are the same? Do you have to take a small drop of my blood before you can turn small?" Angelia asked curiously.
The same exact thing had happened to her before Chi was able to turn into her small bird form. What she didn"t know was this was the initiation of a pact. Not all monsters could initiate a pact on their own since normally, the person was supposed to be the one to initiate the pact with their battle pet, not the other way around.
However, Angelia had this sort of instinct that could find monsters that had the ability to initiate a pact. These would normally be a trait from monsters that had ancient blood running through their veins.
The normal monsters of this era wouldn"t be able to do this since they didn"t have that ability, and Angelia here, could sense whether a monster had ancient blood in their veins. It was a unique trait that even she herself wasn"t aware of yet, but for the time being, it suited her perfectly since she was a little girl who loved animals.
After Cecil, she was the one that was very close to Silver, but her doggie friend was no longer here so she could only find other "friends" to play with.
"Mreow~"
"Oh, never mind then. Let"s go home! Chi, let"s go!"
The little girl quickly climbed back up onto her pet"s back and quickly took to the skies.
"Oh yeah, I"ll name you! Hmmm... what should I call you? How about Mao? That"s a good name, right? From now on, your name is Mao!"
The cat on top of Angelia"s head only purred in satisfaction at its new name. Whenever she finished naming the monster she acquired, the pact would immediately form and a connection would be established between her and her battle pets, in this case, Chi and Mao.
From this connection, she could immediately determine their genders and in this case, Chi was female while Mao was male. She was able to also determine their other characteristics, such as their unique abilities and such.
She didn"t know much about this "magic" thing, but she understood that Chi was able to manipulate the wind according to her will and Mao was able to shape the darkness and earth to act as he wanted.
To the young girl, these were only super cool abilities that made them special, much more special than those ordinary cats and dogs she"s seen on TV back on Earth.
One thing had to be mentioned, and that was the fact that the pact Angelia formed with her two monsters, Chi and Mao, were significantly different to the ones Cecil and Lucia had formed with Silver and Yuna.
Unlike Cecil and Lucia whose pacts were categorized as the symbiotic type, Angelia"s pact was one where she was the master and the two monsters were her servants. She was the dominator of their pact and hence, there was no symbiosis so she naturally didn"t gain her monsters" abilities.
In exchange, she had gained their undying love and loyalty. Her every word and every whim, was like the heavenly decree to the two monsters that had formed a pact with her. They would unconditionally obey her every command as long as it did not cross their bottom lines. What this "bottom line" was differed from monster to monster, however as long as her command didn"t cross it, whatever their master willed, they would carry it out no matter the cost.
This didn"t mean that the monsters that formed a pact with her had turned into Angelia"s puppets. They still had their own thoughts as monsters, but their bond with Angelia had basically maxed out their obedience and loyalty so they"d fulfill her every command as long as it was within their capability to do so.
Also, unlike Cecil and Lucia, Angelia was somehow able to form more than one pact with a monster. Normally, a pact could only be done between one individual with one monster for their entire lifetimes, but for some reason, Angelia had broken this rule and had 2 pacts with 2 monsters and by the looks of it, she might even create more pacts with more monsters if she found them suitable.
"Hmmm~ flying and adventuring is fun~ but I really should head back! Big brother will probably yell at me again so I"ll have to put on my best sad face and escape from big brother"s lecture!"
Being the most spoiled daughter in the family, Angelia had naturally picked up on how to subdue her older siblings by acting cute or super sad in times when she wanted something or wanted to escape from a scolding.
She would still feel very sorry if she had made a very serious mistake, but most of the time, she"d get in trouble for suddenly disappearing or pulling pranks on her siblings. However, her sad or silly face would be her get-away-scot-free ticket.
"Remember Mao! No matter what happens at home, you can"t and will not transform unless I tell you to, okay?!"
Mao only responded by brushing his tail on Angelia"s cheek.
It didn"t take long before Angelia arrived back within the valley. She always landed in a forest so she thought she was safe, however, she couldn"t have been more wrong.
"ANGELIA VALENTINE SILVARIA!"
"Eeep!"
Angelia immediately froze up in shock at the loud, but familiar cry. She robotically turned around and saw a large amount of her family"s soldiers surrounding her and Chi.
She saw her furious mother at the forefront and she paled in fright.
"Young lady, you come over here right this instant!!!"
"M-Mommy, I...I can explain!"
"Oh you"ll be explaining yourself later! Right now Mommy"s going to give you a spanking, so get your b.u.t.t over here!"
"Y-y-y-yes mommy..."
Angelia knew that she couldn"t get away from this one. She could deal with her brothers and her father, but she was powerless against her grandmother, mother, and eldest sister.
Angelia looked around and saw that the soldiers were still cautiously surrounding Chi and it looked like they might even attack once she stepped away from her pet.
She looked up towards Chi and it immediately began to glow and shrink down into its small bird form.
The light that suddenly began emitting from Chi raised the soldiers" wariness since they all have already seen some monsters use unique abilities to fight against them. Many of these abilities were very lethal so the soldiers didn"t want to take any risks and immediately began to take out their weapons and move in to kill the large monster before it could finish its technique.
"STAND DOWN!" Anastasia commanded
"Ma"am it"s not safe here, let us take—"
"I"ll determine whether or not it"s safe! And have you lot forgotten that my daughter is over there?! Are you going to shoot your arrows at her?!"
"..."
When the light died down, the large bird had disappeared and all that was left was an empty s.p.a.ce with Angelia still standing there with her downtrodden expression. The soldiers were puzzled, but Anastasia immediately understood something.
She had been constantly observing her daughter and lately, Angelia had been going around the house and school with a pet bird that she said she picked up on the streets. Anastasia didn"t believe this because all animals in this world weren"t normal.
There were no small birds in this world and the little white bird that constantly followed after her daughter was the first "normal" animal she had seen since coming to this strange world.
When Anastasia saw the large white bird that her daughter had dismounted off of earlier, her suspicions grew and after seeing the flash of light and the small bird that suddenly appeared on her daughters shoulder, she immediately knew that the large white bird was in fact the pet that had been following after Angelia since a while back.
This also meant...
"So young lady, do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"I-I"m sorry..."
"Hmph, we"ll be talking later at home! You"re going to explain to your father and apologize to your brother!"
"Y-yes..."
"So...is that "pet" the same like Chi?" Anastasia eyed the black cat who was curiously looking around the area while still resting on top of Angelia"s head.
"!"
Anastasia only smiled slightly when she saw the surprised look on her daughter"s face.
"Don"t worry. It"s our little secret, okay?"
"Y-yes, mommy!" Angelia smiled up brightly at her mom. She was seriously hoping that this cute and radiant smile would at least alleviate a little bit of her punishment for later.
"Hmhmhm~ don"t think that this adorable smile will make your punishment any lighter, missy~"
"..." That radiant smile faded and a devastated expression replaced it.
"You skipped school, ran away to play by yourself, crossed the border and went out of the valley. Hmmm, what will daddy say whe—"
"Okay mommy stop~! I"m sorry, I"m sorry!"