Chapter 40

When he reached the first bathroom and closed the door, the pain in his hand spiked up again. He quickly grabbed his arm with his hand and leaned against the door. Slowly, Shadow lifted up his left arm and pulled the glove off with his teeth to look at the mark. It was starting to crawl up his arm like black vines. He let out a sigh and used magic to numb the pain again. He put his glove back on and made sure his sleeve stretched all the way to his wrist. He then started cleaning the bathroom. It took him about an hour to finish. Once he was done, he used his magic to pinpoint his squadmates. Eclipse was in the bathroom next to him. Fia was in the hallway, Rolla was on the other side of the cabin, Solaris was in the boy's rooms. Shadow left the bathroom and knocked on the door to the bathroom Eclipse was in.

"Eclipse, are you working or using the toilet?"

"W-Working."

"I'm coming in then."

"Ah! W-Wait!" Shadow opened the door to see Eclipse sitting on the floor playing on his phone. Shadow glared and let his magical energy flow freely and aggressively towards Eclipse.

"I thought I said to be working on something by the time I was finished." Shadow hissed through gritted teeth.

"I-I was just about to!"

"It's been an hour! How long does it take you to eat a sandwich and start cleaning the bathroom?" Shadow asked. Eclipse closed his eyes and covered his head, expecting to be whacked. But instead of hitting him, Shadow tossed a toothbrush onto the floor in front of him. Eclipse picked it up and looked at it, confused.

"What's this for?'

"Start cleaning."

"With this?! You were serious?!" Eclipse exclaimed, looking up at Shadow in shock.

"I'm always serious about housekeeping." Shadow replied before he left and closed the door behind him.

"Hold on! I can't clean the entire bathroom with just a toothbrush!" Eclipse protested. He sprang up from the ground and rushed to the door, grabbing the handle. He shook it, trying to open it, but it was locked. "Shadow? YOU LOCKED ME IN HERE?! HOW DID YOU EVEN DO THAT!?" he cried.

"I'll let you out when you're done." Shadow said, swinging the keys around his finger as he walked away.

"WHAT?! LET ME OUT!!" Shadow just ignored him and teleported to where Fia was.

"How's it going?" he asked from right behind her.

"Eep! Shadow!" Fia turned around in a hurry. She let out a breath. "Jesus, you startled me! Don't do that."

"For such a ferocious warrior, you sure are timid."

"I-I'm not timid!"

"Doesn't matter." He noticed the broom in her hands. "I can see that at least someone's actually working."

"Who was your first victim?"

"Eclipse."

"I feel bad for the guy."

"If we're quiet enough, we might be able to hear him screaming from across the building."

"What did you do?" Fia asked, a scared and concerned look on her face.

"I locked him in the bathroom with a toothbrush after I found him playing on his phone." he smiled.

"You were serious about the toothbrushes?!"

"You thought I wasn't?" Shadow wondered, tilting his head slightly in confusion.

"Uhh…" She looked away guiltily. Shadow just stared at her.

"Anyways, I have other people to check on. Keep up the good work." With that, Shadow teleported away.

"He's like the manager of this place." Fia commented to herself. Shadow teleported to Rolla. She was dusting the living room.

"How's everything going?" Shadow asked. Rolla flinched and turned around in surprise.

"You can't be any quieter can you?" she huffed, narrowing her eyes. She let out a sigh before answering his question. "Everything has been going fine, if you must ask."

"It's nice to know that we have some capable people."

"Eclipse already got caught?"

"Didn't even last five minutes by the looks of it."

"Yes!" Rolla punched the air in triumph, leaving Shadow visibly confused. "That means I win!"

"Win what?"

"Me and the others made a bet on how long it'd take Eclipse to give up." Rolla smiled at him. Shadow just facepalmed. "If what you say is true, that means I win!"

"I don't know what is more sad, the fact that you guys didn't have much confidence in Eclipse to do his work or how little you believed in him to do something before he gave up." Shadow sighed.

"Relax. We know him well enough by now to know that he isn't the 'work-for-fun' type like you are." Rolla waved her hand in dismissal.

"I don't work for fun, I work to work."

"Too bad Eclipse doesn't share some of your insanity. He could use a bit of it."

"Well he's insane if he thinks he can get away from me twice. I doubt he'll bother with his phone again until he's finished."

"That's scary." Rolla stated. "Let's hope he gets his chore done, more for his sake than the bathrooms." Shadow nodded. He turned away and teleported to Solaris. Solaris was tidying up the beds in the boys room. He was 'neatly' throwing the blankets onto the bed of his choice before neatly laying them back on the bed in the correct order. He didn't tuck them under the mattress. When he saw Shadow, he paused for a moment for them to stare at each other before he turned and continued on with his work. Shadow then proceeded to take all the laundry from the room. He raided the girls room for their laundry as well before he went to the court yard to wash them. After a couple more hours, all the chores were finished and everyone gathered back on the training grounds. Except for Eclipse. They all stood there before someone spoke up.

"Where's Eclipse?" A short pause.

"Oh, I think he's still locked in the bathroom." Shadow then let out a nervous chuckle. "I'll be right back." Shadow teleported outside the bathroom and opened the door. Eclipse immediately threw himself on Shadow's legs, bawling his eyes out dramatically. Shadow stiffened at the sudden physical contact but quickly told himself not to kick him.

"How could you lock me in here??" Eclipse cried. "I had to scrub everything in here with a toothbrush! And you know what? It was my toothbrush! I'm never gonna wanna brush my teeth ever again!"

"Eclipse, you're acting like a child."

"It was torture! Torture I say!"

"Eclipse, the others are watching." Eclipse froze. He quickly wiped his tears and stood up, professional looking, as if he hadn't been crying just seconds ago. Shadow gave him a mixed look of equal parts annoyance and disgust. Eclipse looked past him and, seeing the empty hall, glared at him.

"You lied to me?!" Eclipse shouted. He grabbed Shadow by the collar and started shaking him. "You always do this! You always pull all this crap with me!" He growled. Shadow processed his words before a look of anger struck his face. He grabbed Eclipse's collar and shook him back.

"You only act like a baby because it's me!?" he yelled back. "Who do you take me for, your big brother?"

"You're the one that's always messing around with me!"

"At least I don't go bawling my eyes out like a baby when no one else is around! You're not 2 years old!" They both let go of each other and pouted. "Practice is resuming. Hurry to the training grounds." Shadow teleported back to the training grounds, Eclipse right behind him. 

After they had practice, Shadow made them dinner and they all went to bed. Shadow laid awake on his bed again. Eclipse was snoring soundly. Shadow sat up, removed his glove and rolled up his sleeve. The mark had almost made its way to his shoulder and the tips of his fingers were starting to gray. He looked at it with worry but put his glove on again anyways. He rolled up his sleeve and laid back down.

Shadow woke up feeling terrible. He sat up and rubbed his eyes before slipping out of bed. Eclipse was still asleep. He started slowly heading towards the kitchen. His left hand was throbbing. What should I make for breakfast? He paused in the middle of the kitchen. He let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes again. He felt exhausted. He thought he would've recovered all the magic he spent yesterday, but if anything he felt like he had just used up more. He let out another sigh. I'll make some french toast. Shadow started to get out the ingredients he needed to make breakfast. As he was putting the pan on the stove, he realized that his hand was trembling. A worried look crossed his face again but he continued on anyway. Just as he was finishing up, the rest of the squad started to wake up and gather at the bench in the courtyard. Shadow stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, breakfast made and served on different plates in different portions for everyone according to their preferences. Toppings and drinks were also ready to go. Shadow took a deep breath and stood up straight with a smile on his face. He levitated the plates, drinks and toppings and carried them out to the courtyard. He watched as the looks on everyone's faces lit up at the sight of breakfast. He set down the plates with a smile before taking a seat himself.

"Dig in!" He watched as his team enthusiastically started to grab syrups and sugars to add to their toasts, some more patient than others, and in turn started to grab toppings for his own breakfast. He smiled as the pain in his arm started to slowly magnify the more he used it. Solaris looked at Shadow, but didn't say anything. After breakfast, the squad quickly marched over to the training grounds. Solaris stood in front of them.

"Today, we'll start with a light core workout, do a short run and end it with light sparring." Solaris announced. He glanced at Shadow. He looked fine. He continued. "The core workout will be 5 sets of 100 pushups, 100 sit ups, 100 chin ups, 100 one arm push ups, switching arms after each push up and ending with a 2 minute plank." Solaris watched the morale of his squad slowly slip from their faces. "The short run will be a minimum of 3 miles." His squad almost collapsed just from the thought of it. Even Shadow, who had been keeping a bright expression, was starting to deflate. Solaris let out a sigh. "This is an easy training session. What are you all deflating for?" They all let out a unanimous sigh but no one complained this time. "All right, let's get started." Solaris led them through their exercises. Shadow barely managed to keep up with the others during the workout. He secretly used magic to help reinforce his muscles so that he could keep going even though his limbs were screaming. During the run, he was having a hard time breathing. He was completely out of breath by the time they had finished.

"You seem to be lagging a bit behind today." Eclipse breathed. He was also out of breath and sweating buckets. Shadow used magic to fill his lungs quickly and he stood up straight.

"It's just your imagination." Eclipse gave him an annoyed look, shrugged and turned away. Shadow let out a small sigh of relief. A small pain in his chest was starting to bloom and his head was thumping. They paired up as usual. Shadow wasn't looking forward to his spar. The ominous feeling he had hadn't gone away with the day. He could tell that he was low on magic, unusually low. He was starting to wonder if his hand was the cause but he had to focus on his match with Solaris at the moment. He manifested his weapons and spread his wings in mock intimidation. Solaris posed with his sword in response. With a challenging smile on his face, Shadow used his magic to numb the pain in his arm as much as he could. Then they set off. Their clash sent a shockwave across the training field. The light of battle in their eyes, they took to the skies. As they fought, Solaris noticed that Shadow was acting strangely. He seemed to be slower and more distracted than usual. Another thing, he was using hardly any magic, even when he was in a tight spot. Just when Solaris was considering pausing their training session to check up on him, Shadow wobbled in the air in front of him.

"Are you ok?" Solaris called.

"Yeah I'm just a little… tired…" Shadow suddenly fainted and started falling.

"Shadow!"