This mountain forest was vast, and its biodiversity was incredibly rich.
The sheer volume of prey made James highly reluctant to leave this area.
He spent the last few days methodically cruising the ridges, his harvest ledger filling up rapidly.
The timber was packed with smaller mammalian species, which finally gave the tool cheetah a chance to demonstrate its speciality. When it wasn't scaling trunks to pin primates, it was flushing spruce grouse out of the brush.
These fast, small-sized animals served as excellent high-protein snacks for James—the more, the better.
By late afternoon, the cheetah had slipped back into the timber to hunt, leaving James and Aurora to wander the opposite flank of the ridge.
They were navigating a dense forest trail halfway up the mountain slope. Ancient, colossal trunks soared into the sky, their overlapping canopies forming a thick ceiling that blocked out the late sun.
A heavy, lingering humidity hung over the soil, indicating a major water source was situated nearby.
As James crossed the lower slope, a violent, vibrating roar of cascading water echoed through the trees.
Tracking the frequency for several miles, he finally broke through the dense foliage to locate the source of the noise.
Nestled directly beneath a sheer limestone cliff face was a deep forest lake. High above the stone shelf, a massive, brilliant white curtain of water plummeted into the basin below, creating a thunderous resonance that kicked up thick clouds of cool river mist.
A waterfall.
Looking at the pristine spectacle, James felt a genuine sense of appreciation rise through his human consciousness.
Aurora stopped beside his shoulder, her breathing slowing significantly as her amber eyes tracked the falling torrent.
She was completely transfixed by the visual. Surviving on the mountain her entire life, this was the first time she had ever encountered a high-altitude cascade of this scale.
"Perfect time to take a bath," James thought, his focus shifting to the open pool.
After weeks of continuous travel and heavy resource processing, his fur had accumulated a nasty mixture of loose grit, wood ash, and dried, oxidized blood from his various harvests. The texture was becoming highly irritating.
To a wild feline, maintaining the structural integrity of the coat was equivalent to a human maintaining their clothing or hair; it required meticulous, daily management to ensure readiness.
James trotted down to the gravel beach bordering the basin.
The shoreline was dense with willow stands, the clear water mirroring the deep green of the canopy above.
"ROAR~~"
James gave a low rumble, Executing a quick area check to ensure there were no potential dangers lurking nearby.
Aside from the crushing rhythm of the waterfall, the shoreline was clear. Satisfied, he adjusted his center of gravity and stepped confidently into the pool.
Within four strides, the current swallowed his bulk up to his lower torso.
The liquid was formed from fresh alpine snowmelt, its intense chill hitting his skin, forcing an involuntary shiver through his massive muscle sheets.
Dozens of brightly colored trout darted past his legs, but James had zero interest in harvesting fish today. He turned his blocky head back toward the bank and gave a sharp roar, gesturing for Aurora to join him.
Wild animals utilized various methods to clean their hide depending on their environment—ranging from standard water baths to mud wallows, snow rolling, dust baths, and even highly irregular formic acid treatments.
Mud, snow, and dust rolling were common tactics among the megafauna, used to suffocate external parasites. Formic acid cleaning was far more chaotic: certain animals would deliberately collapse over an active anthill, letting thousands of insects swarm through their fur and bite the skin, using the ants' natural chemical secretions to sterilize the hide and kill lice.
For James, however, nothing surpassed the efficiency of a clean water wash.
Submerging his upper torso, he began utilizing his wide forepaws to scrub his chest muscles, while using his rough, papillae-lined tongue to comb through the coarse hair, methodically stripping the dried blood from his coat.
His sudden, hyper-active grooming routine completely startled Aurora. She floated quietly a few feet out, her wide amber eyes locked onto his movements in sheer confusion.
"Damn it... My body has its limits. I can't reach the spine," James muttered to himself, his joints flexing as he tried to pivot his muzzle.
No matter how he angled his neck or extended his paws, the central ridge of his back remained entirely out of reach. Simply soaking wouldn't clear the deep grit embedded near his shoulders.
He tracked Aurora's position for a moment, an idea forming within his mind.
He is thinking of teaching her how to scrub.
"ROAR~~"
James emitted a low, inviting rumble, swiveling his shoulders toward her.
Aurora blinked, taking two slow steps closer through the current, her expression packed with suspicion.
"Just Watch me," James thought. He leaned forward, scooped a heavy splash of river water across her spine with his paw, and applied a firm, deep massage across her upper shoulder blade to demonstrate the action.
"ROAR!!"
The sudden, unexpected contact startled her completely. She gave a sharp, defensive roar and leaped backward through the pool, her paws kicking up a massive spray of water as she ran out of his radius.
"Relax Stupid Cat, I'm not attacking you . Take it slow," James huffed softly, lowering his posture to signal submission. He spent the next ten minutes using low vocalizations and gentle touches to desensitize her to the concept, gradually guiding her through the sequence.
It took nearly half an hour of continuous trial and adjustment before Aurora fully synchronized with the behavior. She cautiously extended her wide forepaws, resting her heavy pads against James's golden spine.
James lowered his chest onto a flat, submerged limestone shelf near the bank, letting his mass relax. Aurora retracted her long claws completely, using the raw muscular power of her forelimbs to apply a deep, high-pressure push-and-rub cycle down his back.
"Oh, hell yes... that's the spot."
As the immense pressure reeled through his upper back, James let out a low, satisfied purr from the back of his throat. The heavy kneading was unlocking the tension in his deep spinal muscles and skeletal joints.
Even a professional human massage therapist couldn't duplicate this level of physical relief; the sheer kinetic force behind a 140kg Sabertoothed's limbs was in an entirely separate tier of output.
"This girl has a natural talent for physical therapy," James thought, his eyes closing as the stress drained from his frame. "If I Keep training her, she'll become the best and first massage therapist in no time."
"REOW!!!"
Suddenly, the frantic, terrified scream of the tool cheetah shattered the quietness of the lake, echoing through the timber from a few hundred meters inland.
The sudden distress signal completely ruined the relaxation. James opened his eyes , hauled his bulk out of the lake, and bolted up the gravel bank, with Aurora matching his sprint as they surged toward the source of the cry.
Within minutes, they breached a thick cluster of elderberry bushes to locate him. The cheetah was pinned high within the forks of a massive pine tree, its claws locked into the bark, completely terrified to descend.
The source of its anxiety was pacing directly beneath the branches.
A massive, round-bodied North American Grizzly Bear was standing over the kill site.
Just moments prior, the cheetah had been hauling a freshly harvested pronghorn back toward the lake when the grizzly blundered out of the thicket, using its sheer physical presence to hijack the carcass. Facing the undisputed heavy bear, the slender cat had zero room to attack or defend himself, fleeing up the nearest trunk to preserve its life.
Under normal conditions, the cheetah would have left the pray immediately, running as far as its legs could carry it.
But things had changed. It was no longer a solitary rogue; it had a Sabertooth captain to protect him.
"A grizzly?"
James slowed his approach, his brow furrowing as he analyzed the target. His amber eyes narrowed with cold caution.
The boar ahead was a fully mature male. While its dimensions lacked the terrifying, vertical scale of the giant short-faced bears he had faced before, a prime grizzly was still an incredibly high-tier adversary—clearing 2.5 meters in length and easily packing over 600 pounds of dense muscle and fat.
It was a highly volatile variable.
But looking at the massive omnivore, James felt a sudden, aggressive heat building in his chest. His hunting instincts were catching fire. He hadn't engaged in a raw, high-intensity physical duel in weeks; his muscles were itching for a dual.
Using this heavy apex as a punching bag felt like an exceptional opportunity.