Private Finished Fighting Past Failure

Jazz was still just about the least experienced somebody could be with this sort of thing, but if nothing else she was very receptive to learning what Seyyal was trying to teach her. She moved along with her guidance until she was in much better form, for the most part withstanding the pushes without all too much trouble. Still, her diminutive size would leave her at a disadvantage as far as stability went no matter what, but this was a vast improvement nonetheless.

"Oh, yeah...okay. That works." Thankfully, the principle functionality of the stance wasn't too hard to understand, and she would be able to replicate it without too much difficulty going forward. Watching Seyyal go over to an equipment rack, she curiously stared at the pad while the other girl put it on. It wasn't something she had seen before, but its function seemed apparent enough.

In contrast, the incoming cushioned smack to the head was not apparent at all. It was gentle, sure, but she was still caught off guard, recoiling a little and rubbing the top of her head with wide, surprised eyes. "Wh...uh. Um. Okay then." Keep her hands up, sure. Compared to how her feet had been positioned, her form with her arms wasn't actually too egregiously bad, her fists raised protectively in front of her. Blinking at the target on the front of the pad, the bear girl exhaled, taking a moment to prepare and then throwing another punch to impact with the pad. It was still pretty weak, as would naturally be the case considering her general physical ability, but much more solid overall.

Compared to the almost entirely hopeless place she had started, with Seyyal's guidance Jazz had started to make quite significant improvements. Her punches gradually grew more solid and well formed, hitting the center of the pad more consistently as their training went on. Kicks were a bit harder since she had to give up half of the stability from her feet, but overall she was picking things up far more quickly than she had anticipated.

If it hadn't been obvious from her appearance alone that Jazz wasn't exactly into fitness, this point was made clear just by how winded she was after their initial half hour of training had passed. Shuffling over towards the nearest seat with a bit of a wobble in her step, she brought her water bottle to her lips and greedily chugged from it while Seyyal spoke. Needless to say, she hadn't been expecting the shift in dynamic at all, as evidenced by the mildly panicked expression on her face once she registered that the other girl wanted her to be on the receiving end of things.

"W-wait, wait. What? You mean, like...you're gonna, um. Come at me like I was coming at you? I mean..." Seyyal had been right to assume the smaller of the two would be anxious about the proposition. Even so, she knew well enough that it would do her no good to only learn one half of all this. After all, it wasn't like anybody was just going to stand there and let her hit them, and in any case she was more interested in learning this for the sake of protecting herself than picking fights.

"J-just, uh. Just a sec." Jazz opted to sit down for another few minutes, both to rest physically, and to mentally prepare herself for being on the receiving end of things. Standing back up, she took one last swig of water and moved back over to Seyyal to get set up with the training pad, assuming a stable stance once more and getting ready for the taller girl to start.

Okay. Alright. She could do this, right? It was fine. These and other rapidly firing attempts at self assurance bounced around in her head while their reversal of roles started up. Jazz tried as hard as she could not to flinch at the first incoming strike, but this was to no avail, eyes squeezed tightly shut right before the impact and a quiet whimper punctuating it.

However, she did manage to stay on her feet. Forcing herself to look forward again, she barely had time to prepare herself again and absorb the following blows, stepping back once but quickly righting herself again. She spoke quietly in response to Seyyal's question, her words obviously carrying almost no confidence, but in truth she mostly was saying them to try and convince herself. "I, um, y-yeah, yes. I'm fine, I'm, uh...you can hit harder if you want."

Jazz had done little to actually convince herself she could handle this, but at the very least it was enough to keep her going. Another startled squeak left her at the first of the more intense hits that came, and each subsequent one seemed to come faster and harder. Exponentially, Jazz felt a creeping fear of the situation build and bubble up in her, and just when she was about to call out that she was giving up: a loud, abrupt tearing sound interrupted them. The bear girl had to actively force herself to look, eyes opening at a snail's pace to eventually fall on the pad in her hand. Five exceedingly long and sharp claws had punctured fully through the material, their appearance simultaneously familiar and foreign to her. "...I...um..."

Needless to say, since this had never happened to her before, Jazz was more than a little stunned. It took a bit of effort to wrench the pad off of the hand that now had claws...or rather, hands. She noticed when she went to pull it off that her open hand had sprouted claws as well, making it a little awkward to maneuver, but she eventually got it off to properly inspect her hands.

It barely registered at first that Seyyal had said anything, and Jazz had to shake her head a few times to bring herself back to her senses. "Um, y...y-yeah. I'm fine, just...I've never. Uh. Never done this. And I didn't even mean to." Without being accompanied by the bear paws they were typically seen with, the claws looked a bit alien, but they were definitely hers.

"Armor? I mean, if...like, if you think that's a good idea, I dunno." If these were the same claws she could normally get with a full transformation, it stood to reason that it was something she could control the same, right? Closing her eyes and doing her best to focus in on only changing her claws back to normal nails, she managed to make them recede about an inch. However, as soon as the excitement from this registered, her focus broke, and almost instantly she triggered a full transformation instead, now sitting on the floor in her standard bear form with a distinct look of ursine grumpiness.

Clearly this was going to be something that took a while to fully figure out, but that was okay. It was naturally frustrating to discover something new and exciting about yourself but then be unable to use it how you want. Even so, Jazz felt a new sense of determination to work on it, and if nothing else she still had her first training session to finish. After all, this new development wasn't what she came here to practice.

Bear Jazz nodded at Seyyal's suggestion to keep going. "Yeah, yeah, I think we should probably just g-..." Abruptly, her eyes widened and she brought both paws to her muzzle, covering her mouth and just sitting there in stunned silence. She'd never been able to speak while shifted before, but that definitely confirmed there was more to her new ability than just claws.

"I, um..." Clearing her throat, she shifted again back to a human, shaking her head a little and still looking taken aback. "I've never done that before. Talked while I'm a bear. Crazy..." She figured it was a good idea to get back to it before she ended up hyper focusing on the new changes, however, adopting an aggressive stance again. "Um, should I try to use my claws?" Eyeing the armor, Jazz felt a little more at ease, worrying less about ending up hurting Seyyal. In any case, they'd start back up with the basic sparring once again.