It was just after sunrise when Shadow entered the cavern they had converted into a training ground. The floor had been smoothed out and was now completely level, Urist had taken the liberty of engraving some scenes of battle into it. Shadow liked the engravings since they reminded her of the base they had back home on the server, it hardly had any plain surfaces left.

Shadow had arrived a few minutes earlier than she had agreed with Astro and Warnado, if this room was to be used as a site for magical training it couldn't be left as-is. One stray spell could completely collapse this cavern, with a risk of the cave-in spreading to the rest of the base. Shadow sat down in the middle of the room and tapped into her magic, visualizing the shape of the room. The warding spell she cast was one she had used many times in different forms, it was in essence the same one she had used to block out sound on many occasions, only now it would block magic and physical force.

Under normal conditions the spell would have taken hours to cast but due to the uniquely high ambient energy in Nexus Shadow could manage it in less. As the spell began to draw from her life force, various runes all over Shadow's skin lit up. The pull was quite substantial but Shadow redirected it to the various pieces of energy-storing jewelry she was wearing.

About half-way through the casting process Shadow had a thought, a theory she could test while nobody was nearby. She opened that new sense she had gained when she came to Nexus, as she did her skin took on hints of the even-less-than-nothing of her unbound form. Her perception had changed, she looked outwards from the physical world into what was beyond.

"This explains a few things." Shadow muttered.

From what she could see Nexus wasn't just one three-dimensional world, there were multiple additional layers. None of them contained any physical matter but they were filled to the brim with energy, bloated almost. Shadow's vision didn't extend far enough to see where all this energy was coming from but knowing that it was there was enough to confirm her theory.

Bolts of pure nothingness began arcing outwards as Shadow forcefully pulled energy from those parallel planes. This would have been quite dangerous if anyone else had been around, something Astro would probably agree with. Shadow felt a sting of guilt when thinking about Astro and the predicament she had put him in. She pushed the guilt away, Fire always said that there was little use in worrying about things you couldn't change.

Before long the protective ward was finished, with time to spare still. Both Astro and Warnado were still eating breakfast in the mess hall. Shadow chuckled to herself. Her acute awareness of everything around her would probably disturb a lot of people if they knew the extent of it. She had consciously not listened in on any of the conversations before or during the election but she was almost sure that whatever Astro had told Tyron had swayed his vote in some manner. Tyron had looked positively tortured when he cast his vote. Shadow definitely had to question Astro on this later.

While waiting for her training partner and her apprentice, Shadow thought back to the meeting they had held the previous evening. Kay had seemingly calmed down but she wasn't entirely sure how deeply that calm reached. As Fire had promised, they had assigned everyone a position as a division leader. Shadow herself would be in charge of the magical training along with Astro, Destiny and Tyron, the latter two were assigned a hybrid role of overseeing martial training as well and ideally to help with integration of magical and martial forces.

Rose and Voidblade were chosen for weapons training and guerrilla warfare respectively. Urist had immediately volunteered for siege operation, citing his intricate knowledge of dwarven engineering. Steve, Jennifer and Fristad decided to oversee resource gathering and similar supportive tasks. Lucy didn't get an overseer role as such, however since she was head of logistics she'd have indirect command over a whole variety of people. Despite Warnado's protests, he and Amanda were not assigned roles since despite their contributions so far, they were still kids at the end of the day. He got over it pretty quickly.

Speak of the quarter-demon: just as Shadow concluded her thoughts Warnado threw the door to the training hall open enthusiastically, maybe a little too enthusiastically, shortly behind him was Astro. With satisfaction Shadow noticed that Warnado's facial obfuscation spell was a lot more potent than it had been in the past, however still not enough to keep her out. Warnado's face had a slightly nervous expression on it, with good reason. Today they would attempt to explore his demonic side.

"So!" Warnado called. "Demon magic and flying today. What's first?" He was trying to sound enthusiastic but his preference was obvious.

"Let's start with flying," said Astro, clapping him on the shoulder and unfurling a rug he'd brought with him. "Honestly, it's not that tough. Ghostly taught me fairly early on."

The flight idea was new but it would be a good opportunity for Warnado to warm up first.

Shadow asked: "What type of flight do you have in mind? Wings? Levitation? Recoil propulsion?"

"Let's try levitation," Astro said flatly. "Simplest and once you get the knack for it it's the most sustainable. Recoil propulsion can get ugly if you launch yourself too hard and wings are fine but kind of exhausting."

He and Warnado sat down at opposite ends of the rug and Shadow stood by to watch.

"So," Astro began. "You know the whole, light the fire in the middle of a leaf and stop it spreading thing?"

Warnado rolled his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah. Ever heard of oxygen?"

"I have, and thanks for clarifying that you have. It'll come in handy later so you shouldn't be wasting it."

Astro produced a leaf from his pocket and floated it over to Warnado.

"Don't catch it with your hand, just keep it where it is," he said. "Don't let it dip or rise. Like I said, it's like lighting the fire in the middle of the leaf and not letting it spread. It's not about pushing it, it's all focusing on where it is at the moment."

It was now floating over the center of Warnado's un-gauntleted palm. Shadow could see the look of concentration on his face.

"I'm going to stop keeping it there," Astro explained. "Up to you to keep it there. Three. Two. One."

It dipped a little, but it then held in place. Shadow noted the progress of Warnado's abilities. A few weeks prior it probably would have shot off or fallen because he panicked or got overexcited. His confidence was growing.

"Alright," Astro clapped. "Well done. Now, focusing on where it currently is, try and imagine it moving up."

"Imagine?" Warnado snapped, and the leaf wobbled. Through gritted teeth he added, "Next you'll just tell me to believe in myself."

"Honestly, the easiest way to do it is to just assume it'll work. Just think of it as no big deal, as though it's perfectly natural that the leaf would rise," said Astro with a shrug and a laugh.

Warnado nodded, seeming to understand a little more. And then the leaf quivered upwards for a few inches, growing slightly more steady as it went.

"And stop," said Astro. "Now I'm going to ask you to do something that's going to sound really dumb, but trust me, it works."

Warnado smirked beneath his hood. "If you tell me the real leaf was all the friends we made along the way I'm going to punch you."

"Okay, not that dumb," Astro laughed. "So I don't break your concentration I'm going to explain the concept first. Where I come from, we wizards like to pretend our brand of magic is a science like thaumaturgy, or a power with a quantifiable source like admin magic, but in reality it's just a natural thing we can do. Some people can sing, some folks are strong, we can change reality a bit. Once you realise that, it's all about how you look at things.

"Some of it has a basis. Like, once you appreciate that water is hydrogen and oxygen, it's not that hard to envision those two things splitting apart. And from there, because you know gas gets set on fire it's not too hard to see the hydrogen catching fire and exploding because that's what hydrogen does.

"Other times you just have to trick your brain into accepting something that doesn't have a good explanation. Part of the reason I floated it over to you is so that you could clearly understand that the leaf can float if you want it to. You've already seen it do so, so you're not going to doubt it so easily. You get it?"

"I think so," Warnado responds. "Consensus reality and all that."

Warnado's vocabulary always surprised Shadow. Occasionally he would mention words or concepts he logically had no way of knowing, like how he had mentioned Clue when they were investigating the Dreamweaver. She really wondered where he got them from.

"Consensus reality is a dumb term made up by smart idiots who don't appreciate that the entire point is not to overthink it," Astro ranted. "But yes, it's pretty much that. So, now I'm about to say the dumb thing."

He didn't say it.

"Keep me in suspense, why don't you?" Warnado pressed.

"Imagine you are the leaf," he paused to Warnado's stifled laughter, and chuckled a bit himself. "Ha… ha, just, ha, just presume that when the leaf moves... you move."

"Oh boy," Warnado shook his head. "Give me a second."

Warnado stifled his laughter. Shadow noticed that the leaf was still where it was supposed to be. It trembled a lot, but it was there. Despite all the snarking and laughing, Warnado was paying attention. His multitasking truly was impressive.

After a few seconds pause, the quarter-demon re-centered his attention fully on the leaf, muttered "I am the leaf" and then started squinting. Sure enough, the leaf started floating upwards, and so did he. His face lit up beneath the obfuscation charm, he immediately called out.

"I'm doing it!"

"Yeah, you certainly are," Astro smiled politely. "Now, try moving a little to the left."

Warnado, now adopting a smug expression, his glowing red eyes squashing and stretching to indicate a cocked eyebrow.

"Easy."

He immediately shot off to the left way too quickly and slammed into the wall, spread out like a snowball. The leaf fluttered away harmlessly.

"You tried to apply force to it, didn't you?" Astro groaned, eyes closed.

"I did indeed," he grunted. "Forgot you're just supposed to assume you're only naturally going to be wherever you're supposed to be or whatever. I can do it better." He floated the leaf back up off the ground.

"Oh you absolutely can. That said, I think that's enough of that," Astro said with a wave of the hand. He rubbed his temple. "Don't worry, it's literally just that principle. You can practice in your own time. Eventually you won't need something like a leaf to focus on. The big thing today: demon gauntlet!"

"Yeah," Warnado said, gulping back saliva and looking at his feet. Shaking life into his limbs and hopping from foot to foot, he made eye contact with Astro and Shadow consecutively and pronounced a more confident "Sure thing!"

"Good," Astro took the gauntleted arm like a doctor and looked it up and down. "Okay, so it's a demon gauntlet. What does that mean?"

"It does… demonic things."

"Right," nodded Astro, feeling dumb. "Shadow, can you get any readings on it? I've not seen too much like it back home. There's demons and stuff to be sure but we've mostly got them locked away. Could use a rundown."

Shadow took a closer look at the gauntlet and, a few spells later, said: "It seems like this is not a gauntlet in the traditional sense but formerly part of an actual demon, at least part of it was. Like someone took the hand of a demon and made it into a gauntlet. It's partly organic, as far as demons are organic at least, their definitions of what a body can be made of is quite wide. I suppose 'demonic' is the correct term after all but it's also not very descriptive if you don't know what exactly is meant."

"Ohhh…" Astro said with a smile of discovery on his face. "So he's drawing on another creature's power. That makes sense. Just give me a second." Astro closed his eyes and started pointing wildly in the air at an invisible diagram. "Right, I've got it."

Astro walked back over to the gauntlet again and held it up for Warnado to see.

"You're not a full demon, so you're all potential but little practice. If I'm right, you need part of a being that is already in touch with its powers in order to access your own. You're attuned but not active. It's like Shadow and I's rings." He clenched a fist and clanked it onto Warnado's wrist, which was now an acting display case and table.

"These rings draw in the background energy of Nexus or the Sane Realm or whatever world we're in, and then we can use it. Otherwise it's worthless. You're the same way…" he paused. "That came out wrong. My point is that the gauntlet is able to take the latent demon juice running in your blood and make it tangible. I wish I could tell you more specifically how - I imagine there was some sort of pact made. Maybe the demon in question benefits from the arrangement. The big thing is that you realise you're not drawing power from the gauntlet, it's feeding on you. Oh, actually! Good analogy: it's like a bank. You've put your power in an account and now you want to withdraw. Don't let it convince you otherwise or you'll start running into problems."

"Convince me?" Warnado asked, a little tremor in his voice. "You're telling me it's alive?"

"Well," the wizard grimaced. "I don't mean to sound insensitive, but your dad didn't go mad for no reason." He powered on through Warnado's horrified expression. "I don't think it's sentient like the Book, but it'll have some sort of intelligence. Worst case scenario, it's a conduit for the thing it's been severed from and it'll talk to you. Best case scenario, it's got a few stock responses to try and catch stupid people out. Little word-games to try and get out of or alter its contract. Just be really specific when you tell it what you want, okay?"

Warnado nodded unhappily. "Just be specific. Loving the irony."

"Excellent," Astro stated, clapping Warnado on the shoulder. They both tensed. He continued, in the low bass of attempted reassurance: "You're doing great. Sorry if I'm a little vague. This is new territory."

Shadow said: "It's good that you know a bit about demons Astro, I've realized that my world's safeguards have kept the worst demons out. All the ones I know are at the very least indifferent, some are even actively cooperative and interested. On the other hand, even if the bad ones came through, we do have a way of safely making contracts. In my world there is a special potion that allows you to speak and think like a demon, in that language each and every concept in existence is its own word, that way demons can't get away with their usual word twisting. Aside from demons, the Mencur-Besh also speak it naturally, and Wodahs does too for some reason."

A thought occurred to Shadow at that moment and she looked around at her shadowy companion. "Care to demonstrate, Wodahs?"

Wodahs detached from Shadow's feet and walked over to Warnado, gleefully ignoring the laws of perspective projection. When she started speaking it sounded like words but not quite, Shadow knew better than to try to understand, all that would do was cause headaches, even for her. Astro flinched, indicating that he had also discovered this peculiar effect.

Warnado stopped her mid-sentence. "Okay, okay, I understand. You don't need to be so harsh about us three-dimensional types."

Shadow and Wodahs looked at each other in genuine surprise. Over the years, Shadow had learned how to read her companion's body language in lieu of a face. Turns out that shades are more expressive than most people would expect, with this one raising its hands in open-palmed surrender to this confusing development.

Shadow mused: "Natural understanding of demonic, huh? Demonic from another world, no less. Makes me wonder just how much or how little of a demonic mind is needed to comprehend the language."

Warnado's face lit up: "She was speaking demon? And I think you'll find my demonic brain is very large. And smart. About demon stuff." He conjured a celebratory taco and held it up like a cigar. However, before he could chomp down, it floated out of his grasp and tipped a cocktail of meat juices and salsa down in front of him.

Astro smirked. "Sorry, after the lesson if you please."

"You've made a powerful enemy today, Astro," growled the quarter-demon child, clenching his fists. "Watch out in the lunchroom."

"If you get me with the same trick," he responded. "I will consider it a mark of my success as a teacher."

The three chuckled.

"But yeah," Astro swallowed. "Let's test something out. What do you know demon powers to be able to do?"

"My dad was really fond of setting his arm on fire," Warnado began with nostalgic enthusiasm, before finishing with a slightly more haunted tone, "That orphanage did not stand a chance."

Astro gritted his teeth, blinked, patted the child uncomfortably on the shoulder.

"So," Shadow said. "if you want to try to activate the gauntlet, I can do my best to keep you safe while you do it."

Warnado, face furrowed into lines that seemed to physically divide his face between enthusiastic determination and terror, forced out an ironically conflicted "Absolutely!"

"I'm going to need you to sit down in your best meditation position, or whatever else helps you focus. Even with my safeguards in place, it's best if you don't have to make use of them."

He leapt, folded his feet under him and then stopped in mid-air. He looked between the two of them, eyes wide open and ready to be filled with approval.

Astro laughed. "Well done, now get on the ground, please. You need to concentrate."

Warnado closed his eyes. He haltingingly floated down, with a few jitters and split-second pauses. He took a few minutes to breathe, and looked at Shadow expectantly. She walked up behind him and placed her palms on Warnado's shoulders. Shielding another mind was not something Shadow did often, it involved forming a very superficial link to the mind in question so that any assault would be redirected to her and drowned in her mind.

"Ready." She said.

Warnado nodded, and it began. She caught glimpses of what Warnado was seeing as he reached out to the gauntlet. A throne of tin, bent and beaten, in a room dimly lit by fire. The gauntlet was worn by something in flux. It almost had a body but it was as though she were looking at it through condensation on a window. Whatever it was, it seemed shriveled, but occasionally flared with strength. Its legs appeared the worst affected, unable to even reach the floor.

Warnado trembled towards it, hands loosely held in a fighting stance. Shadow couldn't understand the demonic words it pronounced but was able to gather an approximate equivalent from the human parts of Warnado's consciousness.

It spoke, to which Warnado responded: "What are you?"

It appeared to say the same thing again, because, aloud, Warnado said: "I think it's just a bunch of stock responses, like you said Astro. It keeps saying the same thing. This is going to be easy."

Shadow opened her eyes to see his response. Astro gave him the thumbs up, realised the child's eyes were closed and awkwardly called out: "You've got this kid. We're with you 100% of the way!"

Shadow closed her eyes again and saw the demon speak.

"Don't worry," said Warnado to the vague being. "I am here for a request. Just calm down. I'd like to make a withdrawal. Let me set my arm on fire… without it hurting me or damaging my clothes." After a pause: "As is my birthright!"

Shadow noted to herself that Warnado had really paid attention to what they'd said. It was good enough that he was trying to be specific, but she was almost certain he would forget to remind the creature whose power they were using. It would have been so easy to keep that implicit.

The being spoke again and Shadow made the mistake of trying to listen, a stupid mistake stemming from the unfamiliarity of the situation. Rebounding with a headache she quickly checked her defences. It was making no indication of a mental attack. She saw it kneel, reach out its arm and chant.

In the real world, the gem of Warnado's gauntlet began to glow. Veins of embers began to criss and cross over the entire limb, from the tips of his fingers and stopping just before the shoulder. Then, when the whole thing started to look like a molten quilt, it sparked and the arm was ablaze in deep purple. The eager tongues of fire formed an aura at least four inches thick around the gauntlet-clad limb. The light was strong enough to weaken the darkness beneath Warnado's hood and consequently light up his face with something other than enthusiasm.

And enthusiasm he had in spades. Warnado was looking at the arm like it was a family photo. He turned it over, stroked it (and found no burns), posed it. This elaborate dance of fingers and joints culminated in the child laughing and saying: "This is so cool."

"Do you want to test it out?" Astro asked in a spirit of genuine scientific curiosity. "Can it spit flames or is it just for close combat?"

"Let's find out!" Warnado cackled, standing up abruptly. Shadow readjusted her shielding, opening her eyes reluctantly. She didn't say anything though, as the demon was still making no efforts to interfere with Warnado's mind. It seemed territorial, refusing to leave its dented throne or its ashpit of a throne room.

Warnado arced the burning arm over his head and aimed for a training dummy, which was promptly consumed by a ball of purple flame and reduced to ash in a matter of seconds.

Its destroyer jumped with joy.

"This is so good!" He cackled yet wilder and returned to look at them. "You know, it kind of looks like a demon arm like this. Like if it remained burning, but the aura became solid a couple of inches deep. It would be all muscular and fiery and start punching everything. That would be so cool."

That, as it turned out was a mistake. The arm straightened out and went bolt rigid. Warnado screamed as the flames gave way to metal-like flesh. Shadow searched her shield but there was no sign of an incursion. Then, all of a sudden she felt the gauntlet's field of influence expand all the way up the arm. This was a physical attack, a land grab.

Warnado shrieked and the arm grew to twice its size and started punching wildly, beating the ground and sending cascades of light outwards from the impacts as the protective barrier absorbed the hits.

"What do you mean this is what I asked for?" Warnado cried out aloud and in his mind. The creature visibly shrugged. The moments where it looked shrivelled were increasingly rare.

Shadow was tempted to cut him off there but Astro said.

"Give us a second. This could be a learning experience."

"Warnado," Astro called out. "It's your power. Just tell it to give over control."

At this point the arm whipped off in Astro's directing, propelling itself with a mighty blow to the ground. Astro only barely deflected its attack with a shield but seemed unfazed.

"Please!" Warnado wailed out on both planes of existence. "You don't have to hurt him! There's no enemies here. Please, you have to stop."

The shapeless shape in the chair was growing more defined. Its legs were now whole enough to stand. It arose and gestured for Warnado to kneel, speaking in what was either a chant or proclamation.

"He won't respond to that," Astro scolded. "Tell him, firmly."

"He's too strong!" Warnado pleaded.

Shadow had enough of this. So far the creature on the other end seemed to not have noticed that she was listening in but that was about to change. She sent a blast of void magic down the connection, more a warning shot than anything else, however the message was clear enough, there was plenty more where that came from. The demon froze up.

"You are going to revert your influence on Warnado or I'll drag you over to my side and make you face me." Demon language or not, Shadow knew the demon had to take her seriously, caught off-guard as it was.

It sat down and became shrivelled and ambiguous again. Warnado's arm faded back to normal and he collapsed. Shadow made sure that no trace of the connection was left, then severed her own link to Warnado's mind, there was bound to be a large amount of emotional turmoil and she had no intention to share in it directly.

Astro ran up and lifted him, chuckling noiselessly and nervously.

"Well," he began. "Memorable first day."

"Memorable?" The child spat. "I almost killed you."

"Almost is a relative term," he jested, before continuing more calmly, "We know what went wrong. You said you wanted an arm that just punched everything and it gave you that. You just needed to give a counter-order. Don't bother haggling, just make a correction. You'll get it next time."

"Next time?!" Warnado screeched and staggered backwards. "You're crazy! You're both crazy! This thing is going to kill us all! This was so stupid."

He tore off the gauntlet and threw it on the ground.

"Warnado, it's just a hiccup. Magic is kind of terrifying. This is just another part of that."

Suddenly Wodahs spoke up again in the demonic language. Shadow suspected that whatever Wodahs said was only very tangentially related to the recent events. Nonetheless it made Warnado turn beet red with embarrassment under his obfuscation spell.

"This isn't about that!" He screamed. Shadow could see his eyes watering. "This is done. The gauntlet is just a problem. I'm not strong enough!"

"Come on," Astro tried. "Think of the things you could achieve-"

"Screw that. And screw you if you think that's worth risking everyone's safety over. Screw you if you think it's worth risking my safety over! The overall vibe you should be getting is leave me alone!"

He turned heel and ran off, kicking the gauntlet as he did so.

Kay materialised in the door only to be shunted aside. At the heart of his beard his mouth became a hard line, before he forced his expression into one of generic, scholarly interest.

"What happened? I was drawing up formations and heard violent, then emotional noises. Is he okay?"

"A training mishap," Astro said after a pause. He was staring at Kay. "He tried to use the gauntlet and lost control. Easily… Easily fixed."

Kay gave him a thumbs up and warped over to the gauntlet. "I'll talk to him." He lifted it and warped away.

And so they were left there, the ground still smoking, and the ash of the dummy beckoning them.