"I'm going to be honest with you, kid. Until you're absolutely sure you can ... summon...." god, what was going on ? A migraine was starting to form. "whatever it is that's wrong without cracking some skulls open, maybe we should leave that for another day. I'm all for being patient and kind, I really am, it's part of my Changing My Ways Journey, but I swear to god if you touch me again today...." A bit of darkness lingered in the warning, reflected in his gaze. Pastelchaos may have been no match for the apprentice's weird alternative form, but Pastelchaos was not above pettiness. If the apprentice touched him, he was likely to wake up the next morning with fire ants in his nest.

He turned his gaze back to Peachstar for a moment, the same darkness lingering in his gaze. Was he beginning to hate the tom? Was that even possible? He was starting to think that maybe it was. This was rather surprising for the tom; after all, Pastelchaos wasn't known for harboring ill will. But this? This was not what he signed up for, and for a moment, he considered saying to hell with the whole clan. But, that would have meant that Peachstar had won in getting him to leave the group, won this strange game of chess the two had been engaged with since the moment they met. No, no, letting Peach win was not an option. He let out a sigh. No, if Peach wanted to play this particular game, the tom figured that he might as well give it a shot.

His whiskers twitched, before he blinked, letting the anger and frustration melt away from him. Once again, his smile loosened, became as charming as it ever was. Gamifying this interaction was probably the best thing Pastelchaos could have done; after all, the tiny, middle aged tom loved nothing more than a good game, mostly because Pastelchaos' one rule for himself was to never lose a game. This game, it seemed, would just have slightly higher stakes. Maybe this was precisely the excitement he had been craving for so long: after all, it seemed likely that by taking the apprentice under his wing, he was going to be playing a game of life and death. Those were the best kind of games, games where even one misstep could have disastrous consequences. It was all or nothing, and with stakes like that, the slightly masochistic, suspectedly sociopathic tom couldn't help but wriggle with anticipation.

But, he was getting ahead of himself. Before he could play the game, he needed to fully know the rules. "So, tell me kid, what do you know about whatever weird condition you have?" There were a million questions that he wanted answered - after all, this was his first elemental and even after witnessing one in action, he was still woefully unprepared for dealing with it. "Like, did ya drink too much one day and suddenly you had a second personality? I know we ain't got a medicine cat right now, but have you considered getting it checked out?"

Pastelchaos fought the urge to tell Peachstar that if it was so helpful to solve the problem, maybe the leader should do it himself. Instead, he nodded along, ideas burbling in his head, offering little more than a grumbled "Of course you do." Focusing back on the apprentice, the tom's tail twitched. "Was the personality what you were talking to earlier when you said you weren't going to kill anyone?" he asked, shaking his head slightly that that was a question that came out of his mouth. "When did this all start?"

"Well, that's an unfortunate origin story," he meowed with a blink, for a moment feeling badly for the tom. Then, as if to remind him, pain shot through his leg. That was enough to divorce him mostly from sympathy. "Does it only happen when you're threatened, then?"

He blinked, seeming unsatisfied with his answer. There wasn't much he could do, though. He couldn't really blame the tom for not knowing, but it certainly would make his work more difficult. "If it hasn't happened randomly, I guess it's safe to say it probably is only in times of danger," he commented after a moment, his tail flicking. "I suppose that means anger management and risk aversion would probably be the best skills for us to work on? The ... less opportunity for your double to come out, the better, right?" He shifted nervously; Pastelchaos certainly wasn't the type who naturally knew how to avoid risk, although there wasn't really an angry bone in his body. "We'll also ... probably have to test if adrenaline causes it, or just impending threat..."

"I'm not... exactly positive yet," he admitted with a blink. "I'll need some time to come up with a game plan. How about this, we break for the day, and then we can start training? It'll give me a chance to ... heal a bit, and think," he meowed, not waiting for Peachstar to respond to his idea. Then, with a final nod, Pastelchaos limped off to try to figure out what the heck he was supposed to do with Lionpaw.

time skip !
Pastelchaos was starting to heal, in part thanks to the fact that he had moved completely into the medicine cat's den. He... wasn't fond of his new position, but he enjoyed it more than trying to figure out a strategy for Lionpaw's training. He had been carefully avoiding the apprentice since his promotion, but he supposed he couldn't shirk his duties to the apprentice for too long, lest Peachstar get on his tail about it. He padded over to the apprentice den, poking his head inside. "Lionpaw, are you in there? It's time to go," he called, a slight nervousness in his voice.

"To start your... training," he meowed, his left eye twitching slightly. He still wasn't sure how he got stuck doing this. "I was thinking we could start by ... running some experiments," he then continued, waving his tail to instruct the apprentice to follow him out of camp.

"Unfortunately kid, you kind of are right now," he admitted with a shrug. "No offense to you, or anything, but you didn't really seem to ... know much about the whole situation, and the best way to gather new information is through some experiments. "Have you ever run laps? I'm thinking that's where we are going to start. Get your heart pumpin a bit, see if anything happens. If nothing does, then we'll know you only... power rangers morph when you're in immediate danger. If something does, we'll know another one of your triggers. Win win, mm?"