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She try. Kasi no answer.
It had to still be the simulation then. Kasi would never not answer Shadow. In fact, Shadow might even be part of the simulation.
The entire time we were racing around the room, bursting through shadows and swiping at them, the fake Zowen just stood there, like a statue, watching. He didn’t attack or say anything, which frankly, was freaking me out.
It was almost as if the simulation believed I feared the sight of the man more than anything he might do, which was weird to say the least.
Even as I had this thought, Fake Zowen disappeared, blownapart in long streaming shadows another Zowen stepped through,hiswings bigger and darker and much more menacing than the ones on the previous Zowen.
He’s here, he’s here,the voices whispered, then fell silent.
Mad-Dragon,Miki-Leopard hissed as she backed us away from this Zowen.
Shadow exploded from the shadows to the left of us and came to stand at our side, hissing at him.
Great.
This was still the simulation, right?
Zowen smiled and frankly, it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. This Zowen seemed much more physically here than the other one had, if that made any sense. His wings were still a writhing mess of shadows, but the rest of his form was more solid.
Shadows erupted from him and he barreled toward us.
Shadow let out a yowl of fury and dove forward so the two collided in a mass of shadows that writhed and tore at each other.
A split second later, Miki-Leopard flung us into the fray.He hurt Shadow.
What followed was nothing but instinct and terror and pain.
Somehow Miki-Leopard went from flesh and bone to shadows, then back again, over and over again.
We slashed and kicked with our physical form, then exploded into shadows and poured through the enemy’s.
Every time we returned to our physical form, the shadows attacked, attempting topenetrate our skin.
I remembered this.
Memory exploded in my consciousness, of that moment when I’d been dragged into the Shadow Realm, of being pinned upright, shadows writhing around me, pouring their darkness into me until my entire being had teemed with shadows, until the light within me, the flames I’d been born with that were the essence of my power, had begun to die.
From those dying flames, there’d come a surge of life and my leopard had ripped free, a being filled with darkness and fury, who’d fought alongside Shadow until Kasi had arrived and yanked us out of the Shadow Realm, back into the real world, setting us free. Trapped in darkness, but free.
I’d spent the following two months ina coma, and now, that leopard who’d been born in darkness, but came from light, from the flames of my power, somehow shielded us and kept the shadows from penetrating our skin.
Not liking how scared and frantic Miki-Leopard felt, and angry that a simulation for class would be so scary and real, I reached for my power, that seething cauldron of flames with ice cracking along the edges, and I pulled it outward.
While Miki-Leopard slashed and roared and flung us between shadows and leopard-form and back again, I coaxed my flames higher until they filled us to overflowing, until the next time Miki-Leopard went to shadow-form, we were on fire.
We pouredthrough the enemy shadows, streams of flaming, icy ones.
Each enemy shadow we touched, retreated from our icy flames, snapping back into Zowen until he was left in his mostly physical form.
He staggered back a step, a look of shock on his face.
Miki-Leopard and I flung ourselves at him, Shadow at our side, but Zowen burst into shadows once more and hurtled away, his wings yanking him back into darkness, then he was gone.
Our shadows retreated and we landed in our leopard form, Shadow sliding to a stop at our side.
Mad-Dragon coward,Miki-Leopard snarled.
