He was still trying to reach his knees.
His body was not cooperating. This was, Sunny reflected a pathetic way to lose. He had traveled back in time. He had carried two timelines' worth of experience and yet still arrived here, bleeding from his mouth and his nose on the floor of the Spire where he had first been enslaved.
'Ahh... am i destined to always lose in this wretched place,' he thought spitefully.
The Crimson Terror moved toward him raising it's left limb which grew coral spikes at the end. He watched it come. He watched the hundred faces in agony gaze at him.
Then the Spell spoke.
[Your shadow has evolved.]
From the shadow stepped Saint. Once again she had transformed, her stone armor now resembled Sunny's own mantle harkening back to Nether's creations. Her skin was white and smooth.
She arose with quiet dignity her presence was sufficient and spectacle was beneath her.
Sunny felt relief. His oldest partner was now an Awakened Demon. He processed this in the time it took her to read the situation, which was not very long.
She spared him one glance of concern and then stepped to the Terror
The Terror's limb came down and Saint's shield came up. The parry did not stop the strike so much as it redirect it, the coral limb drove into the ground. Saint kicked the nearest part shattering a section of it, sending coral fragments scattering across the chamber floor. She moved into the space the redirect created and pushed back giving Sunny time.
He reached for Happy.
The shadow responded with enthusiasm. Sunny directed it toward Saint away from himself. The cheerful shadow wrap itself around her, and watched Saint's presence deepen. Her output shift immediately, the added empowerment allowed for a fighting rhythm that could, at minimum, stall the Terror's attention for the time he required.
He transferred the [Akhlut's Hide] and the [Dark Drinker] charm to her. The [Pack Hunter] enchantment and empowerment of the shadows would aid her even more.
He got his feet under him. He summoned the [Dreadful Armament] back into the odachi and crossed the chamber toward Cassie and Serpent.
He had decided to take out the minions first.
There were seven of them remaining, the Terror's presumed tyrant ability, smaller and faster than their master.
Cassie had been managing two of them with the throwing knife and her sword in alternation, the knife leaving her hand and eventually being able to be re-summoned, her footwork keeping her out of the engagements she couldn't afford.
Serpent held the other five.
Sunny moved to Cassie, he engaged the two from behind, the odachi's deadly reach clearing the space between them with quick strikes that rewarded him with whispers from the spell.
The two of them moved to help Serpent, Saint was being pressed hard but stalling the Terror.
The three worked well together with Sunny and Cassie's help, Serpent had less pressure on it. Both Sunny and Serpent worked through the minions as Cassie threw a well placed knife killing one minion before the engagement began.
Serpent's fangs gnashed and the beautiful odachi fell repeatedly. The last minion fell.
Sunny let himself have one breath and turned toward the center of the chamber.
What he saw gave him pause.
Saint was struggling and losing ground.
The damage she had absorbed in the time she had been alone with the Terror was visible red dust bleeding from her and her sword and shield were slightly cracked. He remembered her sword breaking in the second nightmare. The situation was not moving in a direction he could afford to let continue.
He grit his teeth and crossed the chamber with Cassie and Serpent and the four of them faced it.
A Corrupted Terror faced against an Awakened Demon, two Dormant Monsters, and an Ascended Monster. Sunny rolled the odachi, Cassie summoned a knife in a flurry of sparks, Serpent hissed, and Saint tapped her sword against her shield twice. Sunny smiled at that and they engaged the Terror.
Saint and Sunny took the front, covering each other with the efficiency of a partnership that had been calibrated across a previous lifetime even if Saint did not remember it. Her battle knowledge making up for any missing familiarity. Sunny was reading the Terror's strikes through his shadow sense and giving Saint the fractions of a second she needed.
Cassie and Serpent worked the flanks, Cassie's knife finding the faces when their attention was occupied with the front, Serpent's bulk and reach adding a variable to the left that the Terror struggled to fully account for simultaneously.
It was working. It was also costing Saint more than the pace of the fight could sustain
He noticed the quality of her movement changing. The damage she had accumulated was beginning to affect her more than Sunny could allow.
"Cassie, Serpent," he said, not stopping his movement. "Ten seconds."
They read the request without requiring it to be explained. They was already moving to take a more defensive stalling position to buy Sunny time.
He dove into his soul sea.
It was time to use the gifts Cassie gave him in the Dark City. What she had given him was a collection of memories, the ones she had been practicing turning shards into in the white dream. They carried no enchantments and no particular power but were recognized by the Spell as memories nonetheless. He had understood what she intended them for when she handed them over, and he had thought about this moment specifically in the seconds before he went in.
He found Saint in the soul sea and began feeding.
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
The Spell's notifications arrived in rapid succession, each one marking the consumption of another of Cassie's practice memories as Saint took them in. He kept going. Cassie had turned over a hundred ascended soul shards into memories.
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
He kept feeding tens of memories at a time. Six seconds had passed.
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
Eight seconds.
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
Nine.
[Your shadow has evolved.]
He and Saint returned to the battle.
Sunny looked at Saint. The diminishment was gone, the evolution having reset her damage and condition. She had not changed outwardly, however Sunny's connection to fate allowed him to see that her presence was deeper. The quality of power around her the quality of an Ascended Demon rather than the Awakened rank she had entered the fight at.
She looked at Sunny. He looked at her. He got the distinct impression she was extremely proud and grateful, but also faintly embarrassed about having required the intervention.
'How cute,' thought Sunny, as he and Saint turned back to the Terror.
They resumed the previous arrangement, Saint's increase in rank made a world of a difference. Something caught Sunny's eye.
There was a weak point in its chest. He had not seen it clearly before, it had been obscured by the Terror's movement and the chaos of the fight. Now, with Saint's presence commanding the front and the Terror's focus distributed across four opponents, the spot was visible.
There was a section of the coral mass where the structure was not protecting a weakness within it.
He needed to strike at it.
"Cassie," he said. "Can you get its attention from the right?"
She nodded and moved without hesitation. The throwing knife left her hand and found the face on the Terror's right side with the accuracy from [Precise Art Form.] The creature's attention swung right, a hundred faces following the point of contact.
Sunny flicked the [Prowling Thorn] into the airspace above the Terror's right shoulder and grabbed the string. He pulled.
The arc carried him up and across the chamber, the odachi coming around in his flight, the blade finding the Terror's right face at the apex of the swing. In pain, the Terror's attention followed him upward and rightward. All hundred faces pivoting to track the thing that had just hit them from above.
On the left, Serpent's tail found a limb. The pull was enormous, the Ascended Monster's strength applied to the Terror's left side.
The Terror's body twisted, attention right and upward, mass being pulled left and down. It's chest rotated to face forward because of being forced to look in one direction and moved in another.
The weak point opened.
Sunny had already empowered Saint with both Gloomy and Happy.
He reached into his soul sea and pulled out a memory and threw it at the Terror.
It bounced off the faces harmlessly.
But, Sunny had not intended for it to deal any damage. He gathered what remained of his essence and pushed it into the [Shadow Lantern.]
The memory he had claimed from the third step of Shadow Dance and never planned to use until he awakened given its hunger for essence.
A large amount of shadows poured out from it. A sphere of absolute black that expanded outward from the memory and swallowed both Saint and the Crimson Terror whole.
The [Dark Drinker] roared.
The chamber was very quiet for a moment.
Then the Spell spoke.
[You have slain a Corrupted Terror, Crimson Agony.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[Your shadow is overflowing with power.]
[Your shadow is taking shape.]
[Your shadow is complete.]
The Shadow Lantern's darkness receded. Saint stood in the center of it with the expression she wore when she had done something she considered adequate.
Sunny landed ungraciously and his knees found the floor. Cassie reached him before he finished going down, her right arm around him as pain from forming his core ran through him.
He was grateful to her and enjoyed her holding him that position.
Saint stood nearby as she always did in moments when Sunny was incapacitated. Serpent circled the chamber's perimeter, its ascended form reading the room for anything that might rear its head.
The pain peaked and passed. He breathed.
He looked up at Saint. She met his eyes.
"You were embarrassingly late," he told her.
She looked away. This was as close as she came to flustered.
He looked at his shadow, not at Gloomy or Happy, but but the new shadow that had arrived at its own existence and found the arrangement merely acceptable. It was not modest about this. It occupied the space around him with an attitude of someone that had decided it was remarkable and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
He sighed.
"Welcome back haughty, you're looking pretty high and mighty for someone who just missed the big fight," he said as he greeted his new shadow.
The new shadow did not appear chastened.
They found the gateway by going down.
The Spire's interior was quieter without the press of the fight filling it, their footsteps the only sound as they descended.
Sunny and Cassie moved carefully they were all seriously exhausted after the fight and it only took one mistake to end the life of a sleeper in a Death Zone, even as strong as both of them were.
The gateway chamber was still.
No Sleepers. No sounds from outside.
"They're all through," said Cassie.
He nodded. He had expected this and it still produced in him a sense of satisfaction.
"Do you think that Nephis-" he started.
"She definitely didn't deviate from the plan," said Cassie. "And there's no way she lost against Castor."
He nodded in agreement at her.
"Should we go try and help-" he started.
Nephis walked in.
She was dragging Castor.
He was older than when Sunny had last seen him, the cost of his aspect written on his aged face. Both his legs were broken, rendering him completely incapacitated. But, he was alive.
Nephis's armor was slightly damaged with scratches and dents.
"Nephis," said Cassie.
"He managed a reasonable fight," said Nephis. "Is there a reason you wanted him alive?"
She dropped Castor against the wall with the care she would have extended to a piece of furniture she was considering leaving behind. Castor said something. Nobody asked him to elaborate. Sunny looked at the gateway.
"It requires one person stays behind," explained Sunny. "I elect him."
"I agree," said Cassie cheerfully.
"I agree," said Nephis deadpanned.
Together, the three of them walked through the gateway and left the Forgotten Shore behind.
As he had times before, Sunny was again in the infinite space between the realms, with his knowledge now he suspected he was within a pocket of the Void between the realms, or rather the golden net cast by the gods.
[The Second Seal is broken.]
[Awakening dormant powers…]
Sunny let the Spell temper him through the process of awakening.
[Awakening Aspect Ability…]
[...Aspect Ability acquired.]
[Aspect Ability Name: Shadow Step.]
He checked his runes.
Aspect Ability: [Shadow Step].
Ability Description: [You can move freely between shadows, traveling from one to another in an instant.]
Nothing different. He had expected this, however he assumed [The Shadow] would enhance it itself.
[One of your Attributes is ready to evolve.]
His eyes went to [The Shadow.]
Only two changed.
Shadow: [All your connection to shadows are extremely enhanced. You may empower your strikes to target the shadows themselves].
The 'greatly' went to 'extremely.'
Mystery: [Evolve?].
He chose "evolve" and looked back at the runes.
Mystery: [You are highly resistant to any and all forms of divination. You can bear some small knowledge of corruption].
'Huh, so a weaker Weaver's Mask enchantment,' Sunny thought. 'I suspect both effect will be more powerful the stronger I get.'
Then Sunny heard the Spell speak again.
[Wake up, Sunless!]
At the Academy, three pods activated and whirled as the inhabitants within them stirred. All across the rest of the waking world and in other areas of the Academy were there similar awakenings in various locations.
Sunny, Cassie, and Nephis all got through the basic administrative issues quickly, eager to meet up with each other again. Sunny used his shadow sense to feel around the Academy, he noted that his sense was much more vast and powerful than before.
He also noted that they were not the last sleepers to wake up. He took some pride in this. While it still took a little over a month, which is longer than most sleepers, it was more than ten times faster than last time.
Sunny remembered that there was a whole lotta commotion among the Sleeper army when they all woke up.
'I hope to find Cas and Neph before that.' he thought.
He got his wish making his own luck with shadow sense to locate Cassie.
He turned a corner and their eyes met each other. Without words, they ran and tightly embraced for a few moments.
Sunny had only not seen her for a few hours of administrative issues, and yet he felt as though thee many thoughts about next steps melted and calmed with her with him.
'It truly is nice to share a burden with someone else, especially if it's someone you trust.' he thought somewhat echoing Cassie's words in their third nightmare.
She pulled back and looked at him with relief and fondness.
"Nephis is somewhere here in a the commotion, I'll go find her and then we'll go to locate Kai and Effie," she said. "Make sure everyone is together and we can plan our next steps before the chaos catches up with us." She paused. "You have somewhere else to be though."
It was a rhetorical question. She knew about Rain, in fact, she had gone through great lengths herself to protect her from the dreamspawn in the past life.
"Yeah, I'll also be meeting Jet and hopefully building that relationship more," he said.
"Will you need help finding the house?" he asked planning to just buy the one he had before.
"No, my ability to sift through memories with ease is gone, but I remember the important stuff," she said, with the smile as she turned to go find Nephis.
He watched her go, and then he went in the opposite direction.
The PTV waiting at the Academy's main approach was a more beatdown government one.
He had asked the administrators, on the way through the awakening process, whether Master Jet happened to be available. The administrator had looked at him with the expression of someone encountering an unusual request and had returned a few minutes later to report that Master Jet had said he was lucky she had a free morning.
She was leaning against it with the particular posture of someone who had been worked to the bone. She was gazing at the Academy with nostalgia and a bit of wistfulness.
"Sunless," said Jet. "I'm glad to see you made it back, but you sure took your time."
"Yeah... I was really trying to make it back as fast as I could, but I guess a Death Zone isn't the best place for speed," replied Sunny.
She looked at him for a moment longer. She was from the Outskirts, same as him, and it had never stopped meaning something to him. The understanding between people who came from nothing and now walked in a world with people who had always had something.
"Take a drive with me," she said.
"Thanks," he said. "I was actually going to ask for a favor buying a house and driving to it."
She stared at him.
'The audacity to ask for another huge favor after not even remembering the one from before,' Jet thought.
"Oh, I almost forgot," said Sunny taking out twenty-five transcendent soul shards and holding them out. "I told you more than in full."
"Sunless-"
"You told me not to make promises I couldn't keep."
"I remember what I told you."
She took the shards reluctantly and then she was quiet for a moment.
"What do you need," she said.
"Two things," said Sunny. "The first is I want to stay in touch. I want a person I trust and has some pull being a master in the government. Also I kinda want a friend."
She laughed.
"That's it? You know you can ask to be friends instead of being all weird framing it as a 'request.' Also I don't have that much pull." she slightly teased with a smile. "What's the second?"
"I want help buying a house and getting there," he said.
"When do you want this done?" she said.
"Maybe the next hour," said Sunny.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Don't worry," continued Sunny. "You can tell them I have money, those weren't all my soul shards after all."
"I'll see what I can do," promised Jet as she got on the phone.
The house was exactly as he remembered it.
Not in a nostalgic way. Sunny had only spent time really in the basement training and the rest in the Dream Realm or Dreamscape.
He set his few things down and stood in the silence of a space that was his before steeling his resolve.
Then he went next door.
He knocked, and the door was answered by a girl. She was the spitting image of Sunny and his memories of his sister from his past life came rushing back.
"Hi," he said. "I was hoping to speak to your parents, actually. I just moved in next door."
Rain looked at him. She said nothing and turned back into the house.
"Mom. Dad," she called. "There's someone at the door."
Her parents, with Rain's adopted little brother, arrived and Sunny introduced himself and explained, without excessive context, that he had reason to believe Rain was his biological sister, that he had not come to disrupt anything or make claims, but that he had wanted to introduce himself.
He watched them recognize it. The resemblance he and Rain shared was uncanny. Her adopted
mother's expression settled into something quiet and careful.
"We were told," she said, "that there was a brother. When we adopted Rain. That he… couldn't come with her."
"It's not something I'm upset about at all," Sunny said. "I was old enough to be on my own. She wasn't."
Her adopted father looked at him for a long moment with the expression of a person who was trying to be fair and was largely succeeding.
"Are you awakened?" blurted Rain's adopted younger brother.
"Yes, I am," said Sunny politely but slightly embarrassed seeing Rain and her adopted brother's faces light up a bit.
"Would you be able to join us for dinner?" said her adopted father with a smile.
Dinner was nice, everyone was being very careful to be normal. Rain's adopted parent were extremely polite while Rain and her adopted brother asked Sunny questions once they worked up the courage.
Wondering about the Dream Realm and having powers and fighting monsters.
Dinner ended uneventfully.
They moved toward the front door as a group, making the small ambient conversation of the end of an evening, and Sunny was in the process of deciding how to close it when Rain's adopted brother, stepping out onto the front step, went still.
"Hey," he said. "Who's at your house?"
Sunny looked. In front of his house were Cassie, Nephis, Kai, and Effie. The distance was not large enough to make them difficult to identify.
Sunny had not expected them this quickly. Cassie stole a mischievous glance at them.
'Did-did she have a vision of this and decide to tease me,' he thought incredulously.
"Oh my god," said Rain's brother. "Is that the Changing Star?"
Sunny's eye twitched.
'It seems like her true name is already being peddled out to the public,' Sunny thought.
"Wait. No way. Is that Night?" Rain exclaimed.
She was looking at Kai. Her eyes sparkled at the pop star.
Sunny's eye twitched again.
Kai, for his part, had noticed Rain noticing him and had politely smiled back.
Rain was hyperventilating.
Sunny's eye twitched a third time.
Rain's parents turned to him.
"Isn't that your house?" said her father.
Sunny looked at the four people standing in front of it. He looked at Rain's father. He looked at Rain, whose eyes had not left Kai. He looked at Cassie who was hiding a laugh and waved at them.
"Those are my friends," he said, with resignation.
"Can you introduce us?" asked Rain looking hopefully at Sunny.
As he began to answer the girl in the wheelchair turned to them.
"Hey Doofus, are you going to come say hi or just stare at us," said Effie with a grin.
Sunny plastered a polite smile and went to go introduce the two groups and join his friends.