"And that's it for the numbers," Alpha said. She had just finished doing evaluations on the numbers with Lambda.

"Now it's time to to assess the Seven Shades' physical improvement since last year" She announced to the Seven Shades.

"Do Delta first!" Delta exclaimed.

"Delta you've mostly only done search and destroy missions, I've been in the Oriana kingdom undercover, I think I should go first," Epsilon objected.

And then all the other shades protested on why they should go first.

Alpha sighed, "You'll all be evaluated today so there's no rush. Come on Delta, you're up first."

Alpha decided to get the troublesome one out of the way first.

"Ha ha, Delta is the winner!" She boasted.

"It wasn't a contest anyway."

Alpha and Delta proceeded to a Gym within the castle at Alexandria. It was built by Eta using the wisdom she got from Shadow.

The gym had all sorts of equipment for training and testing like weights that go up to two tons (4409.25 pounds), and things for flexibility like yoga balls.

"Delta wanna do weights first!"

"Wait I have to see the progress you made on your muscles over the past year."

"You'll see Delta's muscles when she lifts the weights!"

"We'll do that after, okay?" Alpha sighed.

"Okay!" Delta rushed over to Alpha. Alpha had Delta take off some of her clothes. Alpha started measuring Delta's body.

"Look at Delta's muscles!" Delta kept flexing.

"Hold still and stop flexing so much."

"But then you won't see Delta's real muscles!"

"Just hold still while I check your body."

"Ah!" Delta started thrashing around. "You're trying to make Delta look weak!"

"Delta calm down." Alpha tried to hold Delta down to measure her but she kept resisting.

"Don't wanna! You can't even give me twenty lamb chops for this!"

This went on for over twenty minutes straight. Some of the nearby maids peeked through the door to see what was going on.

"What's going on?" Somebody asked the maids. It was Cid carrying a bag of Tuna King sandwiches.

"L-Lord Shadow!?" One of the maids stuttered.

"Boss?" Delta asked. "Boss!"

Alpha got off of Delta since Shadow was her and she decided to let him deal with her. Delta got up and busted the door open.

"Boss!" Delta jumped on Cid.

"Ah- hey, Delta. What were you doing in that room?" Delta almost crushed the bag Cid was holding.

"Ah, Boss! Alpha was trying to make Delta look weak!"

"Hello Lord Shadow," Alpha walked over. "I'm doing evaluations on the progress of the seven shades since last year. I was trying to do evaluations on Delta but she kept resisting.

Cid noticed how annoyed Alpha looked when she made that last sentence. He made a mental note to try to not annoy her.

"If you're free, could you help me do it?" Alpha asked.

Cid thought about it for a second then accepted, since he'd just made a mental note to not annoy her.

"Okay. And here I owed you." Cid handed Alpha two sandwiches from the bag he had in his hand.

For a second Alpha looked like she was about to cry.

"T-Thank you."

Then she reverted to her usual self.

"I mean thank you, Lord Shadow."

"No problem."

"I'll be waiting for my turn in the meeting room. Now if you excuse me." Alpha exited the room happy that her Master came and brought food specifically for her. She was also happy she didn't have to deal with Delta's tests now.

There was a problem though, Cid doesn't even know what the hell they did for the past year. Whenever Beta reported, the stuff went right over his head. When she left, he just destroyed the papers since he didn't want to read them. no matter how much they enjoyed playing this game of his

He accepted like every good boss should, but he got himself into more trouble.

Cid started thinking about a way to BS out of doing this. But he already put Alpha's hopes up high! It wouldn't look very Eminence in Shadow-y if he didn't know what his subordinates were like.

Then Cid put his hands together.

'Oh God please help me.'

His only choice now was to say some random measurements and hope he got it right.

"Alright Delta let's start."

"Kay!"

"If you behave, we'll go hunting later, and I'll let you choose the best parts of the animal to eat."

"Really!?" Her eyes were gleaming. "Delta will do her best to behave!"

'Hopefully, that's enough.' Cid thought to himself

Cid started measuring her body.

"Try not to flex."

"But it'll make Delta look weak!"

"If you look weak, more prey will come."

This was enough to tame Delta. She stopped trying to show off her muscles and the rest of the measuring came by smoothly.

"All done. That wasn't so bad was it?"

"How much did Delta grow?" Her tail was wagging speedily.

"Um, your muscles grew um... by um...three pounds, yeah three pounds."

"Wow!... Is that good?"

"You could said that."

Since I just guessed

"Delta will go for one hundred pounds next time!"

"Uh huh, good luck with that. Tell one of the others to come I guess"

"Kay!"

Now it was time for the other Shades to go.

"L-Lord Shadow will be measuring us!? Beta exclaimed.

"Yes, there was a change of plans since Delta kept resisting."

Thank you, Delta. Both Beta and Epsilon thought at the same time. They were happy and nervous at the same time, but Epsilon was more nervous.

I can't let Lord Shadow measure me! One slip-up and my secret is exposed!

"Epsilon are you okay?" Gamma asked Epsilon, noticing her frustration.

"I-I'm fine, totally fine! There's no problem!"

Nobody bought Epsilon's lie but nobody pressured her any further.

"Delta is back!" Delta barged into the room.

"Welcome back Delta, how'd you do?" Gamma questioned.

"Boss said my muscles grew by three pounds!"

"That's wonderful Delta. I guess Lord Shadow doesn't need to write things down for him to remember." Beta announced.

"Too bad your brain didn't grow," Zeta added.

"Shut up! You're just scared Delta did better than you!"

"Ahem," Alpha cleared her throat.

Delta and Zeta shot glares at each other and then turned away.

"Boss said to tell one of you guys to come."

"I-" Epsilon let out a big frustrated sigh before continuing. "I don't have to go, all my measurements are here."

Epsilon succeeded in hiding her tears. She had to pass down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to keep her secret safe.

"You might've grown, it might be best to let Lor-"

"I measure myself every day." Epsilon interrupted. "These are today's measurements."

"That certainly saves us some time Epsilon, I guess you don't have to go then," Alpha said.

At this point, Epsilon had to use magic to hide her tears.

"Zeta, I'll have you go next," Alpha ordered.

"Alright," Zeta said in a casual voice but in reality, she was very nervous.

Zeta proceeded to the gym where Cid was waiting.

"H-Hello Master."

"Ah, Zeta. I guess you're next."

Zeta's procedure went by smoothly unlike Deltas. Her face was red the whole time so Cid assumed she wasn't feeling well.

When the evaluation was finished, Cid had to rely on his ad-libbing skills again.

"You grew 4 inches since last year. Other than that, you're the same as last year."

I hope.

"Hm, I guess I did grow a bit. I'll go report to Lady Alpha."

"Yeah go do that. Make sure you get some rest by the way" He waved her off as Zeta left the room relieved no problems happened. But she wondered why she needed rest as she was

Zeta brought in Eta next.

Cid had trouble keeping Eta sitting up properly, so he decided to do her while she was lying down. Other than the fact that she kept asking Cid to let her experiment on his body, her evaluation also went by without a problem

Next up was Gamma whose physique was horrible. She easily had the least muscular body. She stuttered to get her words out during the evaluation but she was okay otherwise.

When Cid was finished, she tripped over nothing on her way out

After Cid did the rest of the shades, he decided to leave since he had places to be (he doesn't).

"I'm surprised Lord Shadow did all that without looking at our reports," Beta exclaimed.

"They're accurate too," Gamma added.

"Beta could you write down our results?" Alpha asked.

"Got it." She said and left.

"By the way Epsilon, why do you measure yourself every day?"

"Heh, It's a secret."

Meanwhile, Cid was eating a Tuna King sandwich by himself, nervous.

I seriously hope I got those numbers right.

He made a mental note to not visit them around this time of year again.