"Who is the shadow?" Dax asked. "Is it someone we met?"
Before Darkie could answer there was another two knocks on the door and a nurse wheeling a metal tray entered the room.
"Them." Drakie said. "They are."
"Hello, I am here to take your blood." She said with a smile, not knowing that Dax knew her secret.
"No thanks." Dax said. "I think I will just leave."
"No, doctor's orders." The nurse insisted. "It won't hurt a bit I promise, just a small prick and all the pain and suffering will finally end."
"You mean for your master, the shadow lord?" Dax asked.
The nurse's eyes widened at Dax's statement. "How?" She asked. Her eyes then turned black as night. "I see a dragon. I thought they were extinct."
"You can see me?!" Drakie said excitedly.
"Of course, I can." The shadow replied. "I am a shadow spawn. Like you I am born from the mana."
"I read about those!" Drakie said. "You are going to want to use light magic on it."
"If I knew magic!" Dax replied.
"But you are the Magi King…" Drakie said, sounding depressed.
"This is not the Magi King." The shadow said. "At least not yet. Now hold still while I get your blood! It isn't like it is going to hurt you!"
"Oh, and I am supposed to let you release someone named the shadow lord?!" Dax asked.
"Isn't several thousand years of imprisonment enough punishment?!" The shadow asked.
"I don't know?" Dax replied, not really sure how to answer that.
"You should not trust the shadow." Drakie said. "They are known to be liars."
"And dragons are known to be power hungry little hoarders!" The shadow said. "You sought this boy out for your own selfish gains too, did you not?!"
"Drakie was lonely!" Drakie complained. "Drakie was born with nothing! No parents, no friends, not even enemies! Drakie just wanted to get to know someone!"
"Imagine that like only for thousands of years." The shadow replied. "Then you might have a small grasp on how the shadow lord feels."
"I am not going to free someone known as the shadow lord." Dax said. "That just sounds all kinds of wrong."
The shadow nurse sighed. "Well, I am getting your blood one way or another." She said, "I just want you to remember as you lay on the floor broken and bleeding that you could have done this the easy way."
The shadow started walking towards Dax with a needle on her hand, prepared to extract a sample. Dax kept moving one step ahead of her. If she moved left, he would move right, if she moved right, he would go left, always keeping at least three feet from each other.
During their frantic movements, Dax and the shadow would bump into the items in the room. Loud crashing noises could be heard echoing throughout the hallway. Both the doctor and Helen heard the racket and made their way back to Dax's examination room at a brisk pace.
Dax finally made it over to the door and rushed out into the hall. The doctor saw him and grabbed him. "What is wrong with you?" The doctor asked.
"Dax!" Helen yelled as she approached.
"Hold him for me doctor!" The nurse said, changing her eyes back to normal before the doctor or Helen saw. "He won't let me take his blood."
"That's because you are a monster!" Dax said. "Trust me doctor! That is not your nurse!"
"Unhand my son!" Helen demanded.
The doctor let him go and he retreated behind his mother.
"Where do you get off forcing procedures on people when they do not want them?!" Helen asked, her vocal tone in an angry almost yell. "If my son does not want his blood drawn, then he doesn't have to have his blood drawn!"
"Miss, we need to run some tests." The doctor said.
"And Dax, what did you mean she is a monster?" Helen asked. "You really should not call people that. The nurse was just doing her job, it isn't her fault the doctor ignored your wishes."
"No, she is a shadow monster, like the one that attacked me yesterday." Dax explained.
"This is true doctor?!" Helen asked. "Are you employing a shadow monster?!"
"A what?!" The doctor replied. "I don't know what the hell that is! But nurse Smith has been on staff for thirteen years! I trust her with my life, she isn't some monster!"
"That isn't nurse Smith." Dax replied.
"Enough of this foolishness!" The shadow yelled as it started to transform into a black blob full of tentacles protruding from its body. The tentacles would whip around violently, damaging anything they touched.
"You need to use magic Magi King!" Drakie shouted out at the sight of the beast.
The doctor was stunned by the monster and stood there until a tentacle struck him and knocked him unconscious.
"Leave my son alone." Helen said, as she planted her feet firmly on the ground. She held out her hand and instantly formed a fireball twelve inches in diameter. As soon as it formed, he launched it at the shadow creature. As that one struck, she formed and launched another, and another. She continued her assault on the monster until it started to retreat.
"Mom?!" Dax asked. "Since when do you cast fireballs?!"
Helen ignored the question and turned her attention back onto Dax. "Are you okay?" She asked, her motherly concern coming through in her voice. "That monster didn't hurt you, did it?"
"Mom!" Dax said. "I am fine, but what the heck was that?"
"That was nothing dear." Helen said. "Did I never tell you I was in S class, back when I was in school? They taught us all sorts of attacks like that."
"You were in S Class?!" Dax asked. "I thought you were in C class!"
"Because your father was?" Helen asked, with a small laugh. "I suppose one would naturally assume that, but no. Despite your father being just a C class student, I still fell deeply in love with the man. I never really cared about the whole class system anyway."
She looked at the unconscious doctor on the ground as the fire suppression system engaged.
"I guess we should make another appointment." Helen said with a sigh. "I am sorry we couldn't get to the bottom of your problems today, son."