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.

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

seem to be dangerous, just...

The principle was simple.

- it allowed him to shadow an enemy, copying the very essence of their combat technique. After doing so, he could predict their movements, the

allowed him to shadow simpler battle styles. He

shadow much more sophisticated styles, and do it much faster. It also gave him a glimpse of an intuitive understanding of the more esoteric components of the truly advanced battle arts - those created and used by the Awakened, thus incorporating special ways of guiding

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

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... which allowed

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.

self back together by using his True Name. It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and

third breakthrough enhanced the speed with 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 their bodies as opposed to just feeling it intuitively, and even gave him the ability to sometimes predict their

The fourth step...

something he had to invent all on his own, with no

of Shadow Dance went far beyond battle techniques... and would be much,

Shadow Dance, he had achieved

Shell - a powerful tool he had created by bringing together various

deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would never be able to construct it from the shadows, and that was what his Aspect Legacy allowed him to

there was a limitation to

if he had managed to make his mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much training he had put into making it as flexible and adaptable as possible, it was still a

what if... he added another ingredient

Ability, Shadow Control, his Ascended Ability, Shadow Manifestation, and

Ability - Shadow Dance - was missing from the

perhaps, was the reason for the limitations Sunny had

let's just

direction that would eventually lead him to the next step of Shadow