It was midnight. Emperion was still firing at the target but he was breathing heavily. Shadow and Silver were still sparring but their movements began to slow down. Suddenly, the door that had been closed before shot open to reveal an angry Jay. He was wearing typical blue and white striped pajamas as he stood outside the room. He had learned from his first experience not to enter this room without being prepared.
"It's already midnight! Get some sleep!" he shouted.
"Jay? You're still awake?" Shadow questioned. Lifting himself up. He was on the ground thanks to his spar with Silver, who was very skilled.
"I set an alarm for midnight to remind you dummies to get some sleep because I knew you'd train throughout the whole night and exhaust yourselves if I didn't remind you! I would've kicked this door down if I could!" Jay exclaimed. He took a sniff and plugged his nose. "You all smell terrible! Make sure to take a shower tomorrow, if not tonight." He left. Shadow could hear his footsteps as they thumped grumpily down the stairs.
"That's Jay for ya'." Shadow sighed, standing up. "Alright, let's pick this up in the morning. I think we're all tired." He and Silver headed towards the door but Emperion stayed put.
"But I haven't hit the target yet!" He huffed. "And I'm so close now."
"I don't have enough energy to keep your target levitating and I'm not gonna let you drill a hole into the ceiling to hang it up. I don't even know how you have the energy to whine like that. You're obviously tired and continuing would make you sluggish during the day." Shadow objected. He turned the dial back down to zero, releasing the pressure in the room. He then walked towards the target and picked it up out of the air. He then released his magic and set it on the ground. "I'll wake you up by six-thirty this morning and you can help me make pancakes for breakfast under level five sealing pressure. After we have breakfast we can continue training. And try not to use your magic until I say so. Understand?"
"This morning?"
"It's midnight. Tomorrow will be a whole 24 hours from now." Shadow explained. "Now go get some sleep." Emperion nodded sadly before shouldering past them and wandering towards the guest room two floors below them. Shadow led Silver towards the door.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay over? I can make you a blanket and you can sleep on the couch." Shadow offered.
"No, my wife and kids would be worried if I wasn't home by morning." Silver explained.
"Alright. When will you be here to train us again?"
"I don't know but hopefully I'll have some more free time tomorrow."
"You mean today?"
"Yes, whatever, it's too late- too early for arguing about the technicality of the time of day." Silver corrected himself at Shadow's mischievous smile. They waved their goodbyes and Shadow meandered back up the stairs towards his bedroom. He undressed and slipped into his new pajamas before tucking himself in under the sheets.
When Shadow woke up the next morning, he could hear his alarm clock beeping at him. He sluggishly stepped out of bed and turned off his alarm clock, which he purposely put against the wall away from his bed. He changed into his normal clothes and stepped out onto the balcony. He unfolded all his wings and stretched in the morning sun before he walked down to the guest rooms. He quietly opened the door to the left and peeked into the room. He saw Jay, still fast asleep, and quietly closed the door again. He then turned and peeked into the next room. There, Emperion was sprawled out all over the bed, snoring. Shadow chuckled quietly to himself and gently nudged Emperion awake.
"Come on. Wake up. Don't you want to start training?" he whispered. At that, Emperion sat up and saluted, still half asleep.
"I'm ready whenever." he slurred. Shadow giggled and walked back up stairs to grab the necessary ingredients for pancakes. He took all the equipment up with him as well. He created a table and set it up in the training room and waited for Emperion to show up. A few minutes passed before he appeared in the doorway.
"We're... actually making pancakes?" he asked, very disappointed.
"Of course! Don't you want some? I'm not going to make everything for you." Shadow said. "We'll go easy on the sealing stone because it's the morning. Can you set the dial to three?" Emperion was too tired at the moment to complain. He set the dial to three and slowly walked over to the table. Shadow opened a binder with a lot of cooking recipes in it and flipped through the pages until he reached the page that read 'pancakes' at the top. He read through the ingredients, then the directions before he turned towards Emperion. Together, they baked and baked until all the pancakes were finished. Shadow took them downstairs and placed them on the counter. He grabbed out three plates, forks and cups from the cupboards and set them up on the counter. He took Emperion with him when he went to wake up Jay.
"Jay, pancakes are ready." he whispered gently.
"Wow, this is a whole new side of you I don't get to see often." Emperion whispered to himself.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Shadow countered, sarcastically.
"I was just saying you don't usually lower your voice and talk nicely like that." Emperion explained. "It's weird to not hear you spitting trash and insults."
"I have a different way of showing affection to everyone. You'll know when I mean what I say when you hang with me long enough." Shadow said, mysteriously. Just then, Jay sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"Why are you in my room?" he asked sleepily.
"Our breakfast is getting cold." Emperion snapped. "Hurry up, those pancakes aren't going to eat themselves."
"Huh? Pancakes? Where?"
"In the kitchen, dummy." Emperion turned and stomped out of the room.
"Don't start without us!" Shadow called after him. He led the sleepy Jay up the stairs and into the kitchen. There, Emperion was just about to cut off a slice of a three pancake stack.
"Dang it, Emperion, I said don't start yet." Shadow rushed over and pulled the plate away.
"Hey! I was going to eat that!"
"Wait!" Shadow ordered. He distributed the pancakes evenly among the three and they all dug in. As they were eating, Shadow paused and turned to Jay.
"Hey, Jay? Don't you think it's about time we... ya know..." Jay stopped chewing for a moment.
"You're right. Best not to drag it out. When are you free?"
"Let's go tomorrow evening." Shadow continued with his breakfast. A moment of silence followed. "Jay, do you think I'm going to die this time?"
"You'll be fine, Shadow."
"Ok, I know it's not my place to butt into personal stuff, but seriously, what are you talking about that could result in Shadow's death?" Emperion leaned in with a serious expression. Jay and Shadow exchanged looks before turning back to Emperion.
"We can bring you with us if you want."
"Will my life be in danger if I come?"
"As long as you don't do or say anything stupid, you should be fine." Jay assured. "That goes for both of you." he said, pointing his fork at Emperion, then at Shadow. Shadow nodded as he trembled. Emperion just stared at Shadow with a weirded out look.
"So are we still on for training?" Emperion wondered. Shadow slammed his fork on the table and shot up out of his seat.
"Yes!" he shouted.
"Dude, you're going to break stuff if you keep doing that."
"Right, sorry." Shadow sat back down and hurriedly finished his pancakes. "Let's go retrieve the baking stuff, then we can start training."
"Baking stuff? You guys baked in the training space?" Jay wondered.
"Yeah, where else would we back them?"
"In the kitchen?" There was pause.
"Fair point." Shadow agreed. After moving the baking supplies out of the training room, Shadow set the dial to level five again and set the target back up for Emperion.
"Are you going to watch us, Jay?" They looked over at Jay, who was standing just outside of the room.
"Not this time. Today's my first day as a florist." he explained. "Come look for me if you need a break, or some flowers." he called as he ran back down the stairs.
"I thought he was like ten or something. Don't you need to at least be seventeen before you get an actual job?" Emperion questioned.
"This is Demon City. Normal isn't normal here, I guess." Shadow turned towards Emperion with a cheery expression. "Let's get started! Show me how much progress you've made from constant practice last night." he challenged. Emperion raised his hands and prepared the magic circle as instructed. The fireball was the same size as before but when it was launched, it maintained its form until it popped on contact with the target. Emperion turned and smiled at Shadow like a little kid, pride showing all across his face. Shadow smiled and walked over to Emperion.
"Nice job!" he praised, patting Emperion on the top of the head. Emperion let him pat him on the head for a bit before getting embarrassed and swiping his hand away.
"Next, I'll teach you Enhancement techniques." Shadow poked the target and it floated away. He took a ready stance and pulled his fist back.
"I'm going to slowly hit you twice and I want you to try to stop my hand. Afterwards I want you to tell me the difference between the two." Shadow instructed. Emperion nodded, totally serious. Slowly, Shadow brought his fist towards Emperion, who held up his hand to block the attack. After their hands locked for a while, Shadow drew his hand back and began again. It was the same slow movements, but this time, he focused on controlling the density of the magic in the magic streams around his fist and arm to strengthen his muscles. So when Emperion raised his hand to block the attack, he was surprised to see he was being pushed back. Shadow didn't change his speed or attack, but the strength of his fist was far greater than before. Emperion struggled to keep Shadow's hand from moving and was slowly pushed back as the attack completed its track. Shadow stood up straight again and faced Emperion, who was knelt on the ground.
"Do you know the difference between the two attacks?" Shadow inquired. Emperion stood up and put on a thinking face.
"Hmm. Your first attack seemed like a normal slow punch but your second attack was like pushing against a moving rock twice my size." he described.
"Good description. By making the magic in your magic streams denser, you can make certain parts of your body much stronger than normal. The only downsides are that it's really hard to pinpoint the location of your magic streams and it's really hard to control the flow of your magic streams, not to mention the strain Enhancement can put on you if you don't train properly first." he explained. "Do you understand any of what I'm saying?" Emperion shrugged. Shadow sighed and held his hand to his forehead.
"I'm saying without proper training, the Enhancement technique can be bad for your body." he tried.
"Ohh!" Emperion exclaimed.
"Once you can hold a simple sparring match with me under level seven sealing pressure, I'll teach you how to use Enhancement techniques. For now, let's focus on getting you to be able to withstand level six sealing pressure." Shadow decided. "We'll spar for five minutes at a time until you can produce a regular sized basic fireball and hit a bullseye from a yard away under level five sealing pressure. After you can achieve that level, we'll check on your magic level without sealing magic. Then we'll try level six sealing pressure. Ok?"
"Uh..."
"Just do what I tell you without question and you'll get it eventually." Shadow sighed. He created a stop watch and set it for five minutes. He looked back at Emperion.
"Do you know basic close combat fighting?" Emperion nodded. "We'll spar until this timer goes off. Then we'll have you fire at the target again." he instructed. Emperion nodded again and got into a ready stance. Together, they sparred for a few hours until Emperion could hit a bullseye with a regular fireball.
"Now that you've hit the target, let's see how far your magic has progressed." Shadow turned the dial down to zero and made the target float a yard away from Emperion. He began to cast the spell and a huge fireball ignited inside his magic circle. Shocked, he fell back and accidentally broke the spell. Shadow giggled and helped him back up.
"It feels weird casting spells without the extra gravity." he mumbled.
"And that's all right! You just need to learn to control how much magic you put into a spell. If you can recognize the speed of your magic flow and use that to determine how much energy you need to put the right amount of magic into the spell you're casting, you can easily switch between being under 'extra gravity' and being under 'normal gravity'." Shadow explained. "You have no clue what I'm saying, do you?"
"Not really." Emperion agreed.
"Well you don't really need to know the meaning of what I say, just how what I teach you feels to you. If what I teach you feels wrong or unnatural, feel free to change it up a bit and create your own style of fighting." Shadow invited. Emperion nodded. "Now I want to test something real quick." Shadow started towards the dial near the wall when the training space's door opened and Jay walked in with a white plastic bag in hand.
"Lunch." He held up the bag to them.
"Already? It feels like we just started." Emperion exclaimed, running towards Jay. Inside the bag were three sandwiches and juice boxes. They each took a sandwich and juice box before sitting down.
"Aren't you supposed to be working?" Shadow turned to Jay.
"I'm on lunch break. This one will be longer than the rest because it's my first day so from now on I won't be able to hang around longer than eating our sandwiches." he explained. "I can stay and watch you guys for a few minutes today, though. What are you guys working on right now?"
"I'm helping him increase his magic density and fluency before I teach him how to control his magic density." Shadow explained. Jay nodded with understanding. "I was also wondering..." Shadow leaned in closer to whisper to Jay. "... would now be a good time to show him?"
"Only if you want him to know." Jay whispered back.
"What are you guys whispering about?" Emperion demanded. A moment of silence followed.
"Well... we were talking about whether or not to show you my other wings." Shadow explained slowly.
"But you only have one... wing..." he trailed off. A small look of realization crossed his face and pointed at Shadow with a taken aback look. "I knew it! I knew you were hiding your true power! All that weird stuff you were saying totally makes sense now!" he exclaimed.
"You got me!" Shadow playfully raised his hands in the air. "Now, I don't want you telling random people so please don't run your mouth until after the entrance exam, ok?"
"But why? Having lots of power is good. Why did you want to hide it from everyone?" Emperion questioned.
"It can be troublesome at times." he mumbled.
"So how many do you have?" Emperion asked, leaning closer with uncontained excitement. Shadow stood up, turned around and hesitantly took out all of his wings.