Once the countdown finished, Jamie and his bonded beasts eyes closed. Upon opening them again, they found themselves lying on beds, in the Virtual Beast Training room. Upon waking up, Jamie took the virtual helmet off his head, before getting up and stretching, then removing the helmets on Eve and Blackwing's heads, whom both got up and started stretching when the helmet was removed.
Afterwards, Jamie exited the Virtual Training Room, his bonded beasts following him. Once he exited he immediately saw his boss, Scott, two meters away from the door with a mobile phone in his hand. Upon hearing the whoosh sound from the door opening, he looked up from his phone. Upon seeing Jaime exit the training room with his beasts, Scott nodded and said "I wondered who was using it. How did you go?"
Jamie grinned and responded "Good. Blackwing managed to kill the stage 2 eagle at the end without using one of his skills."
Scott nodded, and his eyes looked behind Jamie, at his two bonded beasts, focusing on Blackwing for a moment before looking at Jamie. He smiled slightly and said "Well done. It's looking more confident now compared to yesterday. And while it's good to try and get as much practice in as possible, I'm about to close up today."
"Can I use the practice dummy to exhaust Blackwing's ember before I go?
Scott paused. "You want to try and improve it's skill?"
"Yes."
"You may. Keep in mind though, simply using the skill isn't enough. You need to try to get him to think on ways to improve the skill and apply them. "
"Okay, thanks."
With that, Jamie walked towards the training dummy in the body scanner, his bonded beasts following. Standing in before the scanner, Jamie sent a mental image to Blackwing of him spitting out an ember and burning the dummy, before mentally saying to Blackwing "try."
Blackwing walked towards the dummy, stopping two meters away, before opening his mouth and unleashing an ember. Upon nothing noticeable happening to the dummy after being hit by the ember, Blackwing let out a roar before firing four more embers in rapid succession. Upon seeing nothing happen to the dummy after being hit by all it's ember attacks, Blackwing roared again in frustration. Jamie sent it a soothing emotion through the bond, before saying out loud. "Relax. You can try it again tomorrow. Just think on ways to make the ember hotter.."
Jamie walked up to Blackwing and rubbed him on the neck, before saying "okay, lets go home now."
>>>>>
When Jamie got home, after opening the back doors of the van, Eve leaped out of the van first, while chattering in Jaime's head "Evolve! Evolve! It's time for you to evolve me!"
Jamie smiled. He bent down to rub Eve around the neck while Blackwing flapped out of the van. He said out loud "Eve, Blackwing, head out to the backyard. I'll head out in a moment."
Eve and Blackwing exited the garage, with Eve running in the space between the side of the house and the fence to head to the backyard, and Blackwing chasing after her. Jamie smiled, before closing the garage door and heading into the house. As he approached the living room he could hear sounds coming from the television. A gravelly voice could be heard from the living room as he drew closer.
"We had to restrict information to prevent widespread fear and chaos..Back when what was identified as a meteorite was about to hit, we had people staying in their homes despite being told everything about the danger coming. Some citizens actually made things difficult for the military to evacuate people despite knowing everything, like pedaling conspiracy theories and continually mentioning 'if a meteorite changes colors, it must be nonsense.' And with the portals opening spontaneously continuously afterwards, there was a need for a swift reaction afterwards and information control as we dabbled in dangerous new methods to cope."
Upon entering the living room, Jamie saw his mom leaning forward on the sofa engaged in the television. On the screen there was a light blue and silver room, with two screens at the back showing an image of the cities of Jiburn and Slaka respectively, in the night. Separating the screens a blue wall, with a dark blue circle to the left of the wall, next to the screen on the left, was a dark blue circle with 'AAN' in the circle. Next to the circle was the words 'Andnor News Network' in black. In the center of the room, was a slightly raised oblong stage, light blue. On the stage, was a news desk the same shape and color, only it's length was smaller. At the desk sat three people. To the left, was a female in a blue dress and black hair. To the middle, was a frail looking man with white streaks in his hair, in a suit. The last was the slightly muscular man, with the booming voice that was on the television yesterday. The two men were looking intensely at each other.
As Jamie entered the room, Laura raised her arm and waved in Jaime's direction, without taking her eyes from the television. A booming voice could be heard from the television.
"That was then. This is now. We have managed to put in place a stable system in place to deal with the erratic portal openings, so we can now...."
The gravely voice cut in, interrupting "Back when information about soul improvement and soul bonding was spread by the first person to strengthen their soul, monk Gyatso, we had over a thousand people experiment on their own and end up dying. Back when the qualifications needed for some professions were spread some kids experimented and ended up kill....."
Jamie waved back and walked towards his room. He grabbed the red container from his bag that was leaning up against his desk, before heading downstairs to the kitchen to grab a couple of bags of meat along with a knife and two trays. As he approached the living room he could hear the booming voice from the television.
"And we now have well documented, video cases for everything. As long as we put the information that is being restricted out to everyone ALONG with the issues involved, people can make the logical choices. No-one wants to die."
When Jamie had reached the living room, Laura had turned off the television, leaning back on the sofa with her right elbow leaned up on the side of the sofa, using her right hand to tap her cheek, a habit she had when she was thinking. Jamie walked past her and got a kitchen knife. Jamie opened the freezer and looked inside, hesitating for a moment before grabbing an esky and putting four bags inside. Then he walked to the backyard, carrying the knife and trays in one hand and the esky in another while balancing the red container on top of the esky.
Once outside, he headed to the middle of the backyard, where Eve and Blackwing were resting on the trim cut grass. Eve was constantly running circles around Blackwing while Blackwing was lying on the grass, with a single stream of black light flowing towards it's back. As Jamie approached, the stream of light started to decrease, before it stopped, and cut off. Blackwing opened his eyes and let out a roar while Eve ran towards Jamie, with her tail wagging sending a transmission to Jamie.
"FINALLY."
Jamie smiled, and put down the esky, knife and trays. He then bent down to rub Eve and said "Try to control yourself. I don't want you touching everything until I tell you too, okay?"
Eve huffed "Fine."
Jamie picked up the red container and put it before Eve, cautioning "remember, no touching until I tell you too."
"FINE! Open the container."
Jamie opened the container. Once the lid lifted off, Eve started wagging her tail furiously and she almost took a step forward. Blackwing immediately got up and let out a roar.
Jamie immediately sent a transmission to Blackwing while keeping his eyes one Eve, with his hands near the container, to stop Eve from rushing in and grabbing the stones.
"Blackwing, stay there. I'll talk with you after I help Eve evolve."
Blackwing let out a roar, before laying back down, keeping an eye on the container. Upon Eve remaining motionless, staring at the stones, Jamie let out a sigh of relief. He said out loud "Eve, which stones do you desperately want?"
"A grey, blue, red and brown one."
Jamie's eyes widened. "Are you seriously?"
"Very. Now give."
Jamie picked up the four stones from the red container, then placed them on the ground clustered together. Afterwards, he closed the container, placing it back on top of the esky, before picking up the knife, trays and esky and walked away. Once Jamie was five meters away he placed them on the ground. "This should be far enough" Jamie thought. He then turned back to Eve.
"Eve, you can begin now."