Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, then chuckled.

"No... that's crazy! It would never work."

Then, he stared at the wall some more.

...Would it?

'No way.'

The thought that had crept into his mind while he was thinking about the limitations of the Shadow Shell was so out there that it seemed utterly ridiculous. But the more he thought about it... the fewer reasons to discard it he saw.

'No, that's... that's a bit too strange, even for me.'

And yet, he could not find a logical reason for why it wouldn't be true.

Sunny hesitated for a while longer, then furtively looked around.

Then, he cleared his throat, stood up, and left the office.

If he wanted to test this bizarre theory, he needed to do it somewhere more private.

He left the Valor compound and made his way to the nearby dormitory, where most of the government staff still remaining within the siege capital lived. There, he entered his living quarters - which were a bit more spacious and had better amenities than that of both mundane and Awakened government workers - and locked the door behind him.

Being an Ascended had its perks.

his four shadows to stand watch - two outside the apartment, two within - and stood there for a few minutes, mentally going over what

to be dangerous, just... really

The principle was simple.

had mastered three steps of Shadow Dance to date. The essence of his battle art was shapelessness and formlessness - it allowed him to shadow an

styles. He had

It also gave him a glimpse of an intuitive understanding of the more esoteric components of

in the Dreamscape, which culminated during his first duel with Morgan. The inspiration

had started his journey toward mastery of it by expanding his horizons and starting to shadow not only humans, but also Nightmare Creatures. In the bloody arena of the Red Colosseum, he had submerged himself into their perverted, demented, rabid minds...

third step of Shadow Dance was much more demanding on the practitioner. It required one to truly accept the formless nature of the shadows and let go of their actual self - which, of course, posed the risk of losing it forever. Sunny had made that dangerous breakthrough after being trapped in an endless procession of harrowing dreams by Nightmare and having his

back together by using his True Name. It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he was able to advance his mastery of

which he could comprehend the battle intent and combat intelligence of those beings he shadowed even further, allowed him to actually perceive the flow of essence through

The fourth step...

Legacy, but it was also something he had to invent all on his own, with no one guiding him... as such, he wasn't even sure what the correct path was, let

Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and

had stagnated in mastering Shadow Dance, he had

he had created by bringing together various facets of his skills, Attributes, and

- without deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would never

a limitation

possessed a human body. No matter how much training he had

he added

Ability, Shadow Control, his Ascended Ability,

Shadow Dance - was missing from

reason for the limitations Sunny had

uh... let's just try

he might just discover a direction that would eventually