Elias chuckled awkwardly in response to Kitty. "I was going to try something gentler," he replied, "A little foreplay before the real magic show."

The blast of magic only took a moment of focus. Time seemed to slow as Elias reached his senses outwards, feeling the incredible amounts of mana flowing throughout phoenix spire. He called for a bit, sort of a proverbial handful of that magical essence and channeled it through the slender wand in his hand and momentarily envisioned his spell.
Wind.
The whole event hadn't even taken a moment before a roaring gust of wind erupted from the tip of the wand and flew towards Kitty, aiming to throw her into an armor rack on the side of the room.

Elias was successful in knocking Kitty back into the armor rack on the side of the room with a loud bang, softer thuds and clangs sounding as pieces of armor dropped to the ground. A chuckle came from Kitty, the vampire getting up slowly with fire in her eyes. She brought her palms to her sides, flexing her fingers as fire erupted on her skin, completely engulfing her hands. Cracking her neck and shooting him a smirk she rushed at him. 

But instead of out right attacking him she got down on her hands a few feet in front of him, then pushed off of them so she could flip over him. When she landed with her back facing his she whipped around, coming up behind him and wrapping one arm around his chest to keep him from moving and putting out the fire on that hand so she wouldn't burn him. Meanwhile the other hand stopped an inch from his throat, still blazing with fire and close enough for him to feel it's heat on his skin. Now in such close proximity she could hear his pulse throbbing in the side of his neck, only tempted for a second before she regained her own self control. Her voice was low and vaguely threatening as she whispered in his ear,"You call that foreplay sweetie? I've been slammed harder than that."

Elias allowed himself a moment of relief when his spell collided with Kitty, launching her through the roof. Keyword moment.

The Vampire, clearly annoyed, stood up and conjured flames in his hands. Elias silently thanked his instincts for not shooting fire at the crazy fireproof vampire woman before launching into a full on sprint for the stairs and hopefully a few more moments of safety. Not that it mattered, of course. Elias had only taken a few steps before Kitty jumped in front of him with her blazing hands. The Wizard tried to step backwards, only for Kitty to flip over him and wrap an arm around him to stop Elias from moving and held her other, still blazing, hand just inches away from his throat.

The heat from the fire caused Elias to start sweating, and his painful awareness of Kitty's chest pressed into his back only boosted his pulse even further. He could swear he felt Kitty's breath pick up the pace as it tingled down the back his neck, as if the blood rushing through his head made her a little bit hungrier.

"Uh, Elias stammered, "Could you let go." He couldn't stop his face from reddening, "It's kind of awkward standing here."

Kitty took one look at his face and let him go, starting to pretty much howl with laughter. "Y-You should have s-seen your..." She trailed off as another bout of laughter overcame her, her arms circling her stomach to clutch it as she laughed. The fire had since died off her hands and she no longer sounded like a deadly predator. It took her a couple minutes to calm down before she straightened, wiping a couple tears from her eyes while still snickering with a ginormous grin on her face. "I'm sorry but you started it, we were doing hand to hand combat not magic. You cheated." 

Once she had completely calmed down and the huge smile had lessened into a smaller one she gave him a shrug, "You really shouldn't rely on that wand so much. It's a crutch." Kitty walked over to the armor rack, straightening it up before flashing him another grin. She patted him on the shoulder as she passed him, aiming to go down the stairs and leave the tower. "I think that's enough for today, you may want to get some rest soon. I'll be back in a couple minutes with some ice. I don't think they have freezers in this castle so I'll have to get creative."

Elias could only sit in embarrassment as Kitty laughed. To her, Elias couldn't appear as much more than a toddler. He turned in an attempt to cover his face and tried to conjure a cool breeze to cool himself off, but the heat of embarrassment clouded his ability to focus. 

"I guess," Elias replied to Kitty's comment on cheating, "Though you never explicitly stated 'no magic'." The tension faded away and blood started flowing normally again, finally leaving Elias with a nice and cool head again. He bent down to pick up his wand and then his army jacket from across the room, then Kitty insulted his wand.

"Wizards need to use tools in order to cast magic," Elias replied simply as he watched kitty leave to grab some ice from god knows where. Maybe an actual basement in the gigantic castle, "I'll be upstairs if you decide to come back."

Of course the castle didn't have a freezer. After however many thousands of years and even freaking space travel, a decent castle can't have a freezer? Elias sighed as he walked back up to the room he'd claimed as his own. He entered an pulled off his sweat drenched t-shirt and planted face first in the bed. Every part of his body ached from the beating he had taken during the lesson, and at that moment, he certainly wasn't looking forward to the next.

It was ten minutes later when Kitty came to stand in his doorway, looking at him face planted and shirtless on the bed with a raised eyebrow. "Christ, if you're that beat from just a couple hours you really aren't going to like tomorrow." She walked over to the bed, sitting on one edge and put a small bowl of ice and a couple strips of cloth on the bed next to Elias. "Come on, sit up." Kitty seemed much calmer now, giving him a half grin as she pushed the bowl and the cloth towards him. 

"New rule, when combat training no magic is allowed. Unless its for healing purposes. But when we're specifically training for magic then its okay." She gently put a hand on his arm, sounding slightly concerned. "You can't rely so heavily on magic Elias. One day you aren't going to have your wand or your staff and with no mana left. You have to learn how to defend yourself Elias or you'll never last. Believe it or not I'm not trying to torture you, I'm trying to help you."

Elias sighed and rolled over as Kitty walked into the room, revealing a faint yet unimpressive six-pack and barely toned arms.

"Shit," he muttered, "I should have put up some wards, and maybe a shirt." The wizard sat up to get a better look at Kitty, who hadn't gotten anywhere close to breaking a sweat from earlier. He grabbed a towel and wrapped some ice, placing it on his heavily bruised shoulder and sighed as Kitty stood lecturing about how relying on magic for everything could only do more harm than good, especially if he relied on a staff for magic.

"I don't need a wand or staff to do magic," Elias replied, "It just makes the whole process faster and easier." he demonstrated by lighting a flame the size of a candlelight just above his fingertip for a moment before extinguishing it, "Can I at least use that?"

"Wards maybe, shirt can be relative." Kitty waited a beat before chuckling, "Joking. Maybe."  Upon seeing the little flame Kitty chuckled and nodded, bringing up her own hand and allowing several candlelight size flames to form at the tips of her fingers. "Yes Elias, that you can do. Although when fighting me fire will have no effect." She had tied her hair up in a messy ponytail, it was true she hadn't broken a sweat, it took a lot more than that training session to make Kitty sweat. "And the fast and easy way isn't always the best way." The gentle smile on her face slid down into a frown as she looked at his shoulder, a bit of guilt eating at her. "I really do need to learn how to hold back better, I've been having issues with that lately." Her fingers flexed as she shot Elias a grin suddenly, the veins in her hand starting to glow and morph into a substance that looked like lava, but within a few seconds her whole hand was just lava. "At least I can control this." 

With another flex of her fingers the lava morphed back to flesh, her eyes returning to his shoulder. "Here, let me help. Believe it or not I'm just as good at healing as I am at..." She trailed off, letting out a sigh. "Never mind." Her hand reached out, her hand surprisingly gentle and slightly warmer than the average human as she assessed the damages. "Should probably take care of that now before it starts swelling..." She murmured under her breath, talking to herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated, her fingertips glowing a light green as warmth spread from her fingertips and to his shoulder. Slowly the darkness of the bruise faded into a pale yellowish green one, she withdrew her hand looking just a tad tired. "There, it might be a little sore so I suggest you keep the ice on it."

If Elias had thought to bring any more than the clothes on his back, he would have put on a new t-shirt. He wondered if he could nab some clothes from one of the other rooms, or maybe even a royal tailor. He imagined what it would be like to be wearing some fancy wizarding clothes while casting fireballs from a castle tower with lightning crackling in the distance. Elias brushed the thought from his mind and moved back to reality and watched Kitty morph her hand into lava. It had never occurred to Elias that one could actually morph their own body into another element. Sure, he could buy the fire immunity, but a full transformation had to be either extremely hard, or some kind of natural born ability. Seeing as Kitty was thousands of years old, he couldn't tell which.

Elias winced as Kitty brushed his bruised shoulder and silently hoped none of the bones there had been fractured, but soon a comforting warmth spread not only through the shoulder, but nearly the entire half of his body, easing the sores and clearing the bruise away. Elias stared intently at the spell, almost trying to break it down with sight alone.

“Woah hold up,” Elias said, jumping up from the bed, “Healing magic is basically impossible, you need tissue samples, permission, and not to mention a complete understanding of cellular construction…” The wizard suddenly realized what he was saying and sat back down quietly.

Kitty's lips quirked up into another grin, folding her hands in her lap. "I've studied healing magic for centuries, it was my mothers specialty." The smile seemed to drop from her face completely when speaking of her mother, but with a forced sigh she brushed it off and looked up at him again. Kitty rubbed her forehead, pinpricks of pain blooming in her head. "I used more energy than intended..." Kitty gave Elias a once over, noting that most of the bruises had faded. "But it seems like the spell still managed its intended use." 

Kitty put her hand back on his shoulder again, her eyes serious as she felt the area. "There was a minor fracture but it feels as if my spell fixed it, lessened the bruising as well, but as I said before it will still be sore tomorrow when I wake you up at dawn for the start of training before breakfast." Then Kitty withdrew her hand once more and stood, giving him a calm smile. Thankfully she didn't seem interested in making anymore jokes. "Do you need anything else before I go?"

Elias still marveled at the ingenuity of the spell. If Kitty knew magic that was so incredible, that meant the castle must hold information on some immensely powerful magic, not only had she healed every bruise and ache on Elias’ body, but Kitty had used more power than she intended. He made a mental note to find the library and fill his shelves with as many books on magic as he could find. Mostly the rejected ones, of course. Elias doubted the library would be willing to part with many incredibly valuable books for long. Hopefully he would be able to find some on the advanced healing magic Kitty used, or maybe on the elemental transformation. Kitty asked if Elias needed anything before she left.

“Yeah,” Elias responded, “Where do I get some new clothes?”

"Ah, that reminds me." She left the room for a moment then returned with a small book, she had put it outside so that she could bring in both the towels and the ice. She handed it to him, the title read 'Glamours, Transmutation, and Transfiguration' then she flipped to a certain page, one that specified on how to make clothes from just regular fabric without all the time-consuming sewing. "I grabbed that from the library on my way to get the ice. It should help, considering there are probably some old clothes in the wardrobe that probably aren't your size." She leaned in a bit closer with a mocking tone in her voice, "The previous king was a bit round in the middle." Then she straightened and gave him a smile. "That should be useful. I figured you like learning by book more." 

Then Kitty started heading for the door again, casting Elias a glance over her shoulder. "See you at dawn."

So Elias was in the King's old room. Wonderful. Somehow Elias got the feeling that the king wasn't all that great of a guy, not to mention killed too. Kitty handed him a simple book on thaumaturgy and the like. Probably a beginners guide for some mundane tasks. The page she showed him depicted a pair of circles that would magically resize recreate clothes based on the caster's preferences.

"Thanks," Elias said as he looked over the book. He skipped over the short passage and studied the overcomplicated diagram as Kitty left the room.. It might have looked fancy and advanced, but the circle itself didn't do much more than resize and reshape cloth based on the caster's preferences. It was as if the book's creator wanted to appear smart. The Wizard tossed it on a bookshelf and got to work. After pulling a stick of chalk from his bag, Elias drew a much simpler circle with runes depicting materials clothes were made out of, and the will to reform, all bound together with a simple triangle: The most basic symbol in alchemy. Elias quickly got to work forging himself a number of much better looking outfits out of the late king's wardrobe.

Elias got to the next order of business: wards. The chalk would work perfectly for that. All Elias really had to do was draw up the symbols that would set the invisible barriers in place, then they would remain if they ever rubbed away. The wizard drew a number of small unicursal hexagrams in the floor below, and a larger one behind the door. They weren't much for a rush job right before bed, but Elias had confidence that the wards would warn him of any unwanted movement on the floor below, and the one behind the door should be strong enough to protect against most armed intruders. With everything done, the wizard decided he could rest easy.

The next morning when Kitty arrived and went upstairs to wake Elias, she was less than pleased when the damn ward wouldn't let her through the door. It went like that for the next two weeks, Kitty would come up there at dawn and no matter what wards Elias put up Kitty would just bang on it or make a lot of noise to wake him up anyway. She would also blitz attack him in the halls sometimes, to test his reflexes. But then one day she let him sleep in, at dawn she was surprisingly absent from annoying him. It wasn't until noon that she appeared, with a multitude of books piled up in her arms. 

She placed the books on the ground of the training floor, going towards the stairs and climbing up them before knocking on Elias's door. "Come on Elias time to wake up, it's time for a magic lesson."

Elias had gotten so used to Kitty’s ruckus every morning during the last two weeks that he had begun sleeping right through them most of the time. The wizard assumed he had been doing the same when he woke up that morning. He quickly shimmied into a pair of grey sweatpants and a black t-shirt he had molded out of the late king’s surprisingly expensive clothes. Though it continued to feel weird wearing someone else’s clothes. He noticed the t-shirt was starting to feel a little tight around his chest and biceps, which called for another transmutation with the chalk circle he had designed a few weeks ago.

He heard a knock and opened the door. “Oh hey there, kitty,” Elias said. His hand darted for the first book on top of the stack she was carrying and began to slam the door shut.

"Not so fast." Kitty stuck her foot in the door, giving him a pointed look. "I have to watch you do these spells so I can stop one if you accidentally start blowing stuff up." Then her pointed look turned into a slight glare, looking a bit annoyed. "So will you take some of these damn wards down so I can come in? Don't forget that I can also teach you magic that isn't in these damn books." Kitty was tempted to make Elias practice these spells outside, the man hardly left the tower other than to go to the library. "Please?"

Elias looked at Kitty quizzically through the crack in between the door and it's frame. He had assumed that most of the magic she knew came from the many books he had 'borrowed' from the library and started lining his shelves with. After only two weeks he had half filled the bookshelves in his room.

"Magic not from the books..." he mused, "Fine, come on in." The door swung open. The room itself hadn't changed much over the two weeks, but Elias also wasn't immune to the mess that came with living. The wizard had built a pair of tables just below the windows on the far side of the room, each covered in random alchemical tools, ingredients, circles, a small collection of weapons, play-doh, and other seemingly mundane junk. Several of the carpets had been scrunched up from use and ash filled the fireplace. Otherwise, the room was generally clean.

Kitty followed after Elias, briefly looking around the room before sitting on the edge of the bed. "You do know that I didn't learn magic from like any of these books right?" Kitty smirked slightly then dropped the rest of the books on his bed beside her. "I learned magic from my family's grimoire, although it is no longer in my possession." Kitty frowned at that, but then let out a sigh. "It's better off not being in my hands anyway. The last time I had that book a lot of people died." Kitty looked genuinely distressed and guilty about the deaths she had caused, it seemed that Kitty did occasionally flinch at death. 

Kitty then sat up straighter, glancing at the book he had grabbed from the stack. "Photomancy, that's light magic. Like literal light magic not just white magic." Kitty got up, she seemed restless today, unable to sit still then again she wasn't used to sitting still for long. She walked around the room, trailing her fingertips over everything when a sudden and slightly familiar energy peaked her interest and made her frown. She had gone over to one of the tables, where a revolver she recognized lay. Picking it up she looked to Elias, an upset frown on her face. "There are souls in here, aren't there." The way she said it made it seem more like she was stating a fact rather than asking a question.

Elias shrugged, he had only been guessing at a lot of things, grasping at straws if you will. He watched Kitty carry the books she'd brought and drop them on the bed beside her. The top one was titled photomancy. Elias felt like a child as Kitty explained what the magic was.

"Photomancy isn't hard," Elias replied. He grabbed his wand and a spray bottle from his workstation. With a little puff of water and a wave of his wand, a nearly perfect mirror image of Elias appeared next to him. He then gestured to all the books. "Of course I didn't really learn anything from those things," the wizard commented, "If anything, they're way more complicated than they need to be. I can do most of the magic in there with twenty credits and a trip to Walmart." Elias raised his hand and muttered a phrase. A gust of wind brought his staff flying from the side of his bed and into his hand as he opened the book he had taken earlier on top of his workstation. Kitty then commented on his revolver, which had been sitting closer to the wall, waiting for Elias to decide what he should do with it. "Yeah," he replied, "What of it?"

Kitty was turning the revolver around in her hands, her fingertips running over it as the souls inside strained at the magic that held them. "You shouldn't do this." She said bluntly, she didn't look angry but she did look upset and even a bit disappointed. "You shouldn't enslave the souls of others, whether its before or after death. It's not okay." Kitty walked over to Elias with the weapon still in her hands, her face gravely serious. A part of her was tempted to destroy the weapon and set the souls free, but that would probably only piss Elias off and not get her point across. 

"I don't think you fully understand what you're doing to these souls. You do realize that the longer you keep this souls trapped and enslaved the less likely they are to ever cross over right? They'll become lost souls forever doomed to wander the plains." She threw the gun on the bed, now she looked a bit angry. But it was strange, she was acting as if this were personal. "You shouldn't mess around too much with necromancy that's like that. Raising dead animals and zombies, empty beings like that is one thing. But raising ones with actual souls? That's horrific Elias, and this is coming from me." Kitty really knew how to go from 0-100 real quick, she looked angry stressed and upset all at the same time as her hands ran through her hair. 

"Once you bring a soul back from the dead its never the same. They're never the same. You think just getting them a new body and popping the soul back in or just popping it back into their old one will be fine and easy but it isn't. That soul will decay along with that person because Death never meant for it to be back there." Then Kitty straightened and she looked Elias straight in the eyes. "When you first met me what was your impression of me? Surrounded by dead bodies with blood running down my chin and not even flinching as I ripped the skin off of someone with a wave of my hand. A monster right?" She poked a finger at his chest, harder than she should have in fact. "If you keep going down that path, using that kind of magic, that's what you'll become. A monster just like me." Then she stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's the whole reason why I'm training you in combat and magic in the first place. You've got a lot of talent Elias, you really do. But the people who were around you back at the gang? Atir? They would have brought you down a dark path that would have destroyed the good inside of you. I know I have no right to intrude or force my own will on you or whatever, but I honestly don't want that for you."

"So..." Elias started after Kitty finished her rant, "basically you're saying the souls in there are already dead." The wizard pondered that thought. He didn't doubt that the mental trauma of being killed would have a lasting effect on a person's psyche, soul or not. But tying souls to the revolver gave the people another chance at life and another day of existence. Their bodies might be dead, but they still had their minds intact, and that was all that really mattered. "Even though you'd kill a hundred and twenty five people as if it were nothing, you have no concern for what happens to their souls afterwords?" Elias walked over to Kitty and snatched the revolver from her hands, "Fine, kill these people all over again." He strolled over to a door leading to the balcony just outside the chamber and tossed the revolver over the side. "Happy now?"

Kitty ran a hand down her face, letting out a sigh. "You're right I don't have any concern for where they go, because I know where they go. They go to heaven, a better place, or to hell, where some deserve to go." Kitty sat down on the bed, her hand going over where her heart would be. "I know what happens to people when they're brought back Elias. I've died twice, been brought back twice, and I want to go back to where I was so badly because I hate it here." Kitty brought her hands to her lap, clenching them into fists so tight that her tanned knuckles turned white. 

"I hate the mortal plain so much. All I do here is watch the people I care about die, whether its by fighting the good fight, old age, disease, etc. All I do is stand at graves and its killing me inside. I was happy where I was, I was with my father. But I was brought back because someone else decided to take it upon them to bring me back. Every day I think about going back, and thats why I know what some of the other souls feel. Once you get a taste of something so much better than what you left, you ache to go back to it. All you're doing to those souls is enslaving them and torturing them. What if they were happy where they were Elias? What if they didn't want to come back to this hell?" Her voice had been stronger at first but as she continued to speak it got quieter, her shoulders hunching forward as she looked down into her lap. "What you're doing is worse than anything I could ever do Elias." 

Suddenly she stood, her head down to hide her face but she let out a sniffle, she was crying. And her pride wouldn't let her stay here while she did. "You're fairly capable of finishing these books by yourself without supervision, I will bring by some more tomorrow. Maybe some from the restricted section." Her tone was stiff as she moved purposefully towards the door, her hands clenched at her sides. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Elias could only stare blankly at Kitty as she drove herself to tears. She had barely touched upon the terrors of her past. Death, reanimation, and just about everything else that can go wrong had apparently happened in her life. The wizard frowned as he watched Kitty storm out the room.

"There's nothing after death," Elias muttered as he resealed the wards over his door, "Your life might be hell but at least you're alive. That's more than a lot of people can say for themselves." He strolled back to his bed, picked up the open Photomancy book Kitty had left behind, and carried it outside to the balcony. He lit a mana crystal outside to give him enough light to read.

Kitty returned just as she said she would the next day, although she was dressed in athletic clothes again even though she told him that it would be another week before they started physical training again. That was the schedule, two weeks of physical training then two weeks of magical training with some physical training sprinkled in here and there to make sure he didn't get lazy. She knocked on his door quite loudly, "Elias get up. Class will be outside today, there isn't enough room in here." 

She wasn't holding any books in her arms either, so it seemed as if she had not gone to the restricted section like she told him she would. But she had something much better in mind. "No books today either, well maybe a couple. These aren't from the castle either so don't expect to be going to Walmart." Kitty tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Elias to come to the door. "Bring your wand and staff too, don't worry about chalk. I've got spray paint."

Elias opened the door seconds after Kitty knocked. Bags sat under his eyes after a long night of reading, and he was still wearing the same clothes from the previous day. The wizard looked like a mess compared to Kitty's well rested state and clothes, which clung to the vampire's generous curves.

It took Elias a moment to process everything Kitty said. Something about training outside and secret books, the wizard nodded in response and grabbed his staff from it's rack beside the door. He was pretty sure he'd placed there sometime during the night, even if he couldn't remember when.

"Let's go," Elias said, "but I need some coffee first."