The Doctor led Scarlet to the town's gate, a massive piece of metal set onto rails, but not to the gate itself, but to a small door set into it. Through that door, the two of them left town.

It gave Scarlet the first, unobstructed look at the forest outside, it might have been on almost any Gaia-planet during spring, the trees were carrying leaves and some buds and on the forest floor, underbrush made it difficult to move about. But despite that familiarity, there was something in the air, a feeling of danger, drifting along the smells of nature. It made Scarlet’s hairs stand on end, as if there was something out there, something watching them.

“Try to move silently, we don’t want to attract too much attention. If you are able to use concealment-tricks, use them.” the Doctor told Scarlet as they crossed the clearing around the wall, where the trees had clearly been cut back to prevent anything from using them as cover to approach the wall. Scarlet brought one of her oldest tricks to the forefront of her mind and set her power against the world, projecting a field of irrelevance, subtly influencing anything perceiving her that she was harmless and not worth notice. In addition to that, she concentrated on moving silently amongst the trees, avoiding stepping on dry twigs or rustling leaves, as avoiding notice was always better than misdirecting it.

Next to her, she noticed that Doctor Oak was only vaguely noticeable, even knowing that he was there. She was not quite sure how he managed to do so but the effect was strong and seemed to be physical, not just mental. The implications of that were rather curious, it hinted that either he was able to manipulate the physical realm on an impressive scale or he was cheating, using one of the monsters in some unseen way. Either made him even more worthy of fearful respect as he had been before.

The two of them crept through the forest, Scarlet observing the soft mental probing used by the Doctor, possibly to scout for Crystal Monsters. Feeling that it was a good idea to make her mistakes while someone was there that might prevent them from being fatal, she mimicked him, concentrating on the soft and untraceable aspects. The whole process was challenging enough, sneaking, projecting her irrelevance-field and scanning, causing her to miss the look of approval in his eyes.

What she noticed was that the forest around her was teeming with life, more so than any forest she had ever been in. There were normal animals in the trees but nothing alien enough to make her think of a Crystal Monster so she just followed after the Doctor.

After maybe ten minutes of walking, he raised a hand to stop her, causing her to focus on her scan, seeking for whatever it was that he was sensing. Focusing on the scan made it slightly increase in range and she felt a disturbance, a tiny ripple in the fabric of life that filled the forest. Knowing that it was there, she zeroed in on it, correlating the mental disturbance with the reality around her and looking at that spot.

Slightly higher, hiding in the trees, a cat was lounging around, only that the feeling that it gave off was not that of a cat, or any animal. Once she had noticed it, Doctor Oak stepped forward and pulled a crystal from his belt-pouch, gently tossing it towards the tree the cat was occupying. In the dim light of the forest, Scarlet noticed that there was a slight glow in the crystal, as if a small, green light was set inside. She felt the Doctor retract his mental domination, allowing the monster within to materialise.

Even seeing it the second time and carefully watching, she could barely believe her eyes. First, the crystal was flying through the air, like any object would when tossed, when suddenly the world seemed to twist and shimmer, as if it had a small hiccup and where the crystal had been, a monster was occupying the surrounding space. In this case, the monster looked a little like a tree from some strange nightmarish fairytale, gnarled and twisted. The disturbance below had alerted the cat and it was hissing and growling but neither the Doctor nor his tree seemed overly impressed. There was another mental wave from the Doctor and the tree-monster started moving in a very un-tree-like manner, its roots bursting from the ground below the tree the cat was still sitting on, rapidly reaching upwards, causing the cat to leap aside. That might have just been what the Doctor wanted, for he simply gave another mental command and one of his tree’s branches elongated and smacked down, smashing the airborne cat before it had even a remote chance to get into contact with anything to try to dodge.

The hit looked rather interesting, to Scarlet’s perception, it was not just a physical impact, even if there was a big component of that, there was also a strange repulsion between the two disturbances she was perceiving, as if the two projections were unable to exist in the same space. As a result of the hit, the cat landed hard, even if it had managed to get its paws under itself and contrary to anything Scarlet would have imagined, it tried to attack the tree-monster, hissing and leaping towards it, its claws extending far beyond what she would have thought possible.

But even that act of defiance was pointless, as such acts often were, and only resulted in the roots bursting from the ground again. Scarlet would have sworn that she saw one of the roots rip through the cat but other than a short flickering, there was no indication that it was true, no blood or even ruffled fur. The roots were enough to ward off the cat and the Doctor finally spoke.

“That should be enough, now it is for you to show that you are worth the food you’ll eat.” he told her with a slight smile on his face.

Knowing that it was a test, Scarlet focused on the battered cat, focused not just on the sensation her physical senses were showing her but also the sensations her mind was detecting, the disturbance she had felt before. She knew that the Doctor had said that it would be easier to capture one that was weakened, so she focused on the change between the previous and the current sensation, hoping to find the key there.

With that as a starting point, she followed the change in sensation inwards, supplementing her perception with the knowledge that the creature was projected outwards from a crystal, so there had to be one within. And that crystal, or rather the mind within, was her target.

Inwards she went, into the disturbance and finally, she found the mind within, radiating fury and pain in an intensity that made her flinch. The second she made contact, the cat reacted, whirling around and focusing on Scarlet. Despite the heavy hits the cat had already taken, it leapt again, this time not towards the tree-monster but towards Scarlet, clearly intent on ripping the new assailant to shreds.

More feeling the attack coming, Scarlet managed to dodge aside and took the moment of its miss as an opportunity to strike back, forming her mind into a sharp spear to rip into the cat’s mental realm. In the mental realm, Scarlet and the cat’s strange not-quite ego wrestled, Scarlet using her training and determination to counter the sheer savagery of the cat, managing to avoid the brutal strikes it was sending her way, using every expenditure of power that it made against it. Fighting at the speed of thought, the two adversaries clashed, again and again, until finally, seconds after their titanic battle had started, it ended almost as abrupt as it had begun.

The cats projected form flickered for a moment, before vanishing, leaving behind only the crystal that was its real, physical shape. The cat had been mid-leap, trying to attack Scarlet in the physical realm and the crystal followed a ballistic trajectory, only to have Scarlet catch it in the air. It was slightly smaller than the crystals she had seen the Doctor use, The crystal was mostly clear, with only a glimmer of bluish light shining from within but there were some small off-colour particles encased in the crystal, forming reddish patterns that caused the light to refract.

Now that the crystal was dormant, Scarlet was able to gauge how it affected her, to keep it down. There was a slight force, pressing against her mental seal but it was easy to keep it up. But given that she would have to keep that up at all times, even that small, mental exertion would take some time getting used to.

“Can I try releasing it?” Scarlet asked, again, hoping that if she made a mistake, the Doctor might help her avoid making it a fatal one. He just nodded and she focused on her crystal again, slowly letting her mental control recede and she felt a sensation of outflowing, causing her to drop the crystal, only to have the cat land on its paws, right in front of her, looking up at her. She felt what she thought were its instincts mingling with the contact she had established, slightly pushing and prodding at it, almost as if curious about the intruder within its mind.

Now that the cat was no longer actively trying to introduce her organs to the outside world, Scarlet had some time to take a closer look. The first thing that stood out was that it looked like a normal cat, maybe a little larger, only that it had two tails, sinuously moving around. It’s coat was a tan colour with reddish streaks running through it, similar to the pattern of the crystal. All in all, she wondered if it was too late to ask for another monster, it seemed so underwhelming compared to the nightmare-tree and even the dog the Doctor had used before.

“Put your monster away and we go back to town.” the Doctor ordered, recalling his own Crystal Monster and walked away.