More Testing

"Well now's a time as good as any to try out this new ability of mine right?" 

Xavier sat down in the lotus position, his back facing the shadow seed. He could still feel that distinct feeling of having a new limb to control, like the awareness of his body had expanded. So he simply tried to move it. At first there was no reaction, but after a few tries his shadow began to shiver. 

"Hmm. This is going to be harder than I thought." He kept trying over and over again before getting some results. After an hour's worth of time, he had managed to raise his shadow's hand without raising his real hand along with it. After more and more practice he was able to do it much more smoothly, but also found something interesting. When he tried to move his entire shadow, it melded into one flat circle. 

"That's… not what I wanted." he sighed. "Looks like I have more practice ahead of me." But before he could continue his testing, He was shaken out of his Inner world. 

Peter was crouched in front of him with a worried expression. "You alright? You've never meditated for that long before."

"Huh? Oh yeah I'm fine, just fell into a bit of a trance." Xavier said, a little dazed from being dragged out of his Inner World forcefully. 

"Good. Now explain this whole system thing to me, you play more games than me and that's what this looks like."

Before he explained anything, Xavier first got up and sat right back down in an office chair. 'How do I explain this…' He was silent under Peter's pleading stare. 

"... I don't know exactly what it is or where it came from, but I know it can help us. Look at my shadow for a sec." Xavier began as he pointed at his shadow, which was waving its hand at Peter. "I used the free ability thing in my inventory and was given a few choices, Shadow being the first and most compatible. Other than that I looked at the shop and I know it has a lot of materials and blueprints for a lot of different stuff whether it's a radio scanner or a screwdriver."

Peter was unresponsive for a while, staring at Xavier's shadow. Which seemed to wave around like it had a life of its own, making all kinds of silly shapes to mess with him. "So you're telling me that not only did we get some kind of physical enhancement, but we got some system that gave us a free ability?" 

"Yup." Xavier had an ear to ear grin seeing Peter so confused. "In my opinion, we shouldn't think about the why for now. What we need to do is more testing on what exactly we can do and if there are any differences."

"...Yeah we can do that," he said pensively.

===

For the next two hours, they boys tested their physical abilities. They found that all of their attributes were basically the same, but there were differences. It seemed like Xavier and Peter's strength and agility were switched. Xavier was much faster than Peter, despite only being two points ahead of him. While Peter was stronger. 

They also found that only Xavier had the organic webs, which Peter was pretty bummed out about. But Xavier cheered him up by telling him he would help synthesize his own webs from his organics. Other than that there was nothing else different about their statuses, except for their skills as Peter's was empty. Also Peter opened up the ability selection sitting in his inventory. 

[Welcome user! Please select one of the following, in order from best to least compatibility.]

[Scanning user's attributes…]

[Attributes found! Choose one of the following, Aura, Telepathy, Mist, or Force]

Peter relayed what his choices were to Xavier, as he had already chosen. "Well I'd just go for the first one because the further down the list you go, the harder it is to control the ability." He said as he was playing with his shadow, making it turn into random shapes. Peter didn't hesitate for long, following his brother's advice and choosing Aura.

[Congratulations on choosing Aura user!]

 The system said as a white pill appeared in front of Peter's face, getting forced down his throat. Peter fell to the floor in shock, choking and holding his throat. Xavier, hearing this, turns and starts laughing. "Haha, forgot about that part." 

Xavier had gotten the control of his shadow to the point where he could mold it into any shape he wanted. But for some reason It hadn't leveled up yet. "Why is this so frustrating?" He had been thinking about his problem for the past half-hour and he had some theories. Either the ability had some kind of prerequisite, or there was something that he was missing.

'Wait! Didn't the ability say at level three I could interact with physical stuff? How could a shadow do that while being flat?' This line of thought led him to some of his recent math problems in algebra. A 2D object has length and width, but a 3D object has height as well- creating volume. Then he tried out his new idea: Controlling the shadow as if it were a 3D object.

All this time he had been thinking of his ability to control shadows like drawing up shapes on a piece of paper, but if he wanted to give real form to it, it needed to have volume.Thats why he found the answer to be like an algebra problem. The way he had been controlling it had been like shaping only the edges, meaning that he currently had no control over its height.

Xavier relaxed his control over the shadow so the shape would reset. During his testing, he had also found that extended use of his ability would make him mentally fatigued. Somewhat like staying up for longer and longer without any rest. So after the hours of testing he had done, he was getting pretty tired. Another thing- If he pushed past the fatigue, he would develop a migraine the longer he did it. 

 The next thing he realized was how he took control of a 'living shadow.' It felt like he was spreading his awareness to that of the shadow. As if his new 'limb' was growing under his command and he could control that new part. But he also noticed that he couldn't control a shadow from an inanimate object. Xavier tried to control Peter's but he could barely get it to move at all- akin to trying to run with weights tied on your back.

With his shadow in its usual shape, Xavier spread his control over it. He tried his best to extend it evenly. He imagined that while flat, the shadow still had depth. He spread his control down into his shadow as well as around it. Like he was dying a pond, spreading his dye into the center of it as well as the edges. 

When the shadow was fully saturated, it turned darker than it was before. Xavier thought that was strange, but he was too tired to care and needed to focus. He imagined the shadow blowing up like one of those car dealer inflatables- Just without the waving. It was slow, not to mention that it felt like Xavier was digging out his brain matter with how far he was pushing his ability right now. But after a very long minute, he was done. In Front of Xavier stood a 1:1 replica of himself, only that the orifices like the eyes and mouth were completely white. 

[Shadow has leveled up! Avatar unlocked!]

"Finally! That was harder than It should have been!" Xavier said just before the fatigue caught up to him, losing concentration. Because of that he lost control of his shadow, making it fall back to the floor. But he could swear he could still see its white eyes looking up at him. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to stay awake for long, he turned to Peter. 

"Hey Petey, take me home would ya?" He muttered before promptly passing out on the Lab's floor for the second time in the past two days. 

"...Sigh." Having just recovered from having an ability pill rammed down his throat, and strange powers given to him, Peter was looking for a break. 

He sighed one final time, picking up his brother. "It's always me isn't it?"