As suggested by Mia, we all took a break to rest. I didn't understand why we needed rest, as we hadn't really done much, but after a few moments I felt my body slowing down and wondered if anyone else was feeling similar effects. When I looked over at the others, it seemed my hunch was correct as they were all trying to catch their breath, well at least everyone who was normal that was. The dragon ninja seemed to be doing better than everyone else, especially Martel who had the most stamina out of all of us. When I spotted him, he was still looking at the black ball of darkness that was his spirit.

"Shouldn't you not be doing that?" I questioned. "Remember what Mia said? If you aren't careful you're gonna tire yourself out before we even start the next lesson."

"I'm good," he responded while his spirit started to flicker before finally vanishing. "If I start to get tired, y'all should be worried because my stamina is higher than yours."

I already knew that of course, he always used a bazillion shadow ninja to fight after all, but I still wasn't sure we should just ignore the advice of an angel. Something told me they knew a lot more than we did, especially when it came to things we hadn't even heard of before. I decided not to question him though, he probably knew what he was doing. After letting him be, I would move to take a seat, glancing around the room and looking at everyone. It had just dawned on me that we were in a place few ever had the chance to even know about, much less see and instead of exploring, we were here to train so we could hopefully defeat someone not even the gods had been able to defeat. What exactly in my life had lead up to this moment? I could tell you if you really wanted to know. I flinched as I heard Minerva's voice in my head, and turned to see the telepath grinning at me.

"What's the matter with you?" I questioned. "Don't you know what consent is?"

"Sorry, your thoughts are just so loud," Minerva stated, though she didn't look very sorry. "It's hard not to respond to them all the time. You can always call me your conscience like your brother used to."

I rolled my eyes at the comment and returned to my thoughts, hopefully without any further interruptions. Several moments passed before we all returned to Mia. The angel girl was still sitting in the center of the room meditating to herself. When she heard our footsteps, she would blink before yawning as she stretched her arms. Had she fallen asleep?

"Oh, you're back, I was beginning to wonder what was taking so long," Mia said as she got to her feet. "Are you all ready to begin the second part of your training? You are? Good. Let's begin. Please summon your spirits again."

I took a deep breath and called forth my spirit. It came much easier this time, and soon a teal colored orb of light appeared in front of me. Once everyone else had their spirits ready, Mia would nod before summoning her own. She pointed to a training dummy that was nearby before striking it. The dummy barely budged, seemingly unfazed by the attack. "That is an attack without spirit. Now, observe."

She would close her hand into a fist and I watched as her spirit moved its way back into her body. After taking a breath, she would punch the dummy with what looked like the same amount of force. This time the dummy would be blown across the room, slamming into one of the walls.

"Our next lesson will be on strengthening yourself. This should come easy to most of you I assume," she said while breathing out to relax herself. "Focus on the area you want to strike with, feel the energy flow into you, and destroy your targets."

After snapping her fingers, dummies would appear in front of each of us. Cole looked at his dummy before turning to Mia, a question written on his face. "I hope you've got something stronger, me and Caleb could break apart these guys no problem," he stated. To demonstrate, he would punch the dummy. After a moment, he would wince while the dummy didn't flinch. "Okay, ow."

"No need to fret, earth shaker," Mia began while she started to walk to another end of the room. "Those dummies are adjusted to handle your strongest output. That is, your strongest output without using your spirit."

The dragon ninja all raised their hands at the same time, most likely wondering the same thing that I was. "Do we have to be in our strongest form for this?" Caleb questioned, taking the lead. "Our dragon forms would allow us to release our greatest strength, but I think this room would probably come down around us."

Mia then shook her head. "No no, you eight are an exception. Your training partners are adjusted for your strongest outputs in your regular form. You would surely destroy it in your dragon forms, so refrain from doing so."

Once that question was answered, we all would focus on mastering this technique. I didn't immediately try and strengthen myself, wanting to see how far I could push the dummy before it wavered. My strongest output was probably a sonic boom right now. I pressed my palm against the dummy before unleashing a sonic boom into it. Everyone aside from Kyle flinched from the sound, but the dummy didn't move an inch. I see.

"You wanna warn everyone before you do that?" Dash questioned.

"Sorry, was just testing something," I responded and decided to start practicing. I closed my eyes to concentrate on strengthening myself with my spirit. If I was correct, this wouldn't be much harder than using chakra to strengthen my body, though it was probably different in execution. I felt a buzzing in my fingers, closing my hand into a fist before striking the dummy in front of me.

The dummy split apart as my fist connected with it, its pieces splattering across the wall in front of me. "Phew."

"Excellent job," Mia praised. "Everyone else, it is your turn now."

Both Tai and Taisuke were able to destroy their target, with Martel and Marquel following close behind. Eventually, everyone had managed to do so. Mia nodded and clapped her hands, making the dummies disappear. "Alright, you all took to that rather quickly. Your next lesson shall start now."

She then disappeared in a golden light, leaving us confused. Where she had previously stood, another ball of light appeared before taking on the silhouette of a person. The light disappeared and revealed Darwin now standing in place of Mia. He grinned and placed a hand on his chest.

"Greetings mortals! I will be teaching your next lesson!" the angel spoke. He held out his hand and a lyre appeared in it, though the strings were orientated the wrong way. I soon saw why that was as he immediately nocked an arrow into it, as if it were a bow. "My specialty is weapon, the hardest skill to learn."

"We already know how to use our weapons," Kai stated.

Darwin then snapped his fingers and several weapons fell in front of us. Wait, how did he get our weapons? "Oh I'm aware you know how to use them, but you don't know how to feel them." After snapping his fingers again, our weapons would rise into the air. He shot several golden arrows at them, and to my surprise, the arrows would destroy our weapons."

Kai snapped and went to lunge at the boy though he was held by Zane and Jay. "Why would you do that?!"

"Well that's simple," Darwin grinned. "Those weren't your weapons. Your true weapons are inside of you, you just have to draw them out."

"What do you mean?" Lloyd asked.

"You must go deep within yourself and draw out your weapons," Darwin reiterated. "You will travel into your inner world, find your weapon, and draw it. Once you do that, you will never have to obtain a weapon again as you will always have one. I'll teach you everything you need to know, but thats only after you're able to draw out your weapons."

"Wait, aren't you gonna at least explain how we're going to do that?" I questioned. When he shook his head I would blurt out. "But how will we know where to begin?"

"You can begin by holding still," Darwin said, nocking a few arrows in his bow. He pulled the bow string, and fired, one of them hitting each of us.

I felt a sharp sting in my chest as the arrow struck me, though following that drowsiness would overtake me and I soon found my eyes were closed. Moments later, I was able to open my eyes again and found I was in an empty room filled with a teal light, reminding me of the color of my dragon. The room started to change before my eyes, growing in size while objects began to fill the room. A bed took up one corner, a dresser took up another, and I realized that it was transforming to the room my brother and I shared back at home. What was happening? When the room was done remodeling itself, a glowing orb would appear in the center of it, hovering inches above the ground. The orb soon began to change shape before it resembled what appeared to be a masculine version of myself. He didn't look like Echo, as he kept my hairstyle and body proportions, he looked exactly as I would if I had been born a boy.

"Who are you?" I questioned, staring at him in disbelief.

"I guess you wouldn't recognize me in this form," he said, his voice sounding almost similar to my own. "I'm Sonic. You know me as your dragon, but, if you succeed in subjugating me, you will know me as your weapon as well."

I raised an eyebrow at the last half of his sentence. "What do you mean, subjugate? I don't have to make you a slave do I?"

"You want to make me a weapon, right?" he asked, opening his hands. He moved his fingers around, almost like he was spinning a pair of invisible blades in between his fingers. A moment later those blades became visible as he spun them. "A weapon isn't anything besides the user's slave, don't let cartoons distract you from that true fact. Subjugate me and make me yours. If you don't, I'll kill you."

"Isn't there another w-"

I moved my head to the side as one of his daggers came flying at me, nicking my cheek when it came near. While I started to question why we had to do this, he would rush at me with his second blade, jabbing at my chest. I managed to evade his attacks and balled my hands into fists before striking back, aiming for his arm to try and remove his dagger. He noticed what I was doing and brought his arm closer, making it an easier target. I foolishly took the bait, soon meeting a foot to my stomach. After knocking me into the bed, I would struggle to catch my breath as he went to pick up his second blade.

"If that's the best you can do, you should just roll over and die," he said, spinning his daggers again. "I would hate to be controlled by someone so weak willed."

"I just didn't want to destroy my room," I panted, shakily getting to my feet. "I would've blasted you through the roof if this was anywhere else." This place wasn't real though, there was no reason to hold back. Once I collected myself, I would gather my spirit before launching myself at him. I released two sound blasts at him, hoping to catch him off guard while trying to reach him his daggers.

If my hunch was correct, which it seemed to be these days, then those daggers were the real him and if I took them from him I would be able to take him as my own. He defended himself against my attacks, crossing his daggers which somehow caused the sound to dissipate. Oh well, I still managed to grab hold of one of his daggers while he was blocking my strikes. I snatched it from him while he was distracted and pulled myself away from him.

"One down, one to go," I said, twirling the dagger in the air before catching it in my dominant hand.

"Wow, you're quick to catch on," he said. "Though, I guess I should've known that given I'm part of you. Now then, will you come or will you run?"

I didn't answer his question and instead charged him, sending a vertical slash across his arm. Our daggers collided, stopping the attack and sending sparks flying. As we continued to clash, I would start to notice something. "Why aren't you using any sound powers?"

"Because I can't," he answered, parrying a strike to his neck. "I've  already tried the moment you started to use yours."

"Really?" I asked, catching his arm in between my own. I flipped him onto his back before stabbing at him, the tip of my dagger pointed at his nose. This was quite a similar position I had my brother in when we were in the Elfin Domain. "Why is that?"

As his dagger fell from his hand he would let out a sigh. "Because you're the one who gave me the power as a dragon. Without you commanding me, I can't use those abilities. Anyway, you've won. Take your new weapons and you'll wake up."

I nodded and took hold of the dagger. As my body started to disappear, I would wave goodbye to Sonic. I probably wouldn't ever see him in this form again, so a proper farewell seemed fair. When I awoke again, I found that I was the first one to wake up, the others were still asleep. I also found something heavy was resting in my hands, and looked down to see the daggers I had taken from Sonic. They were covered in musical notes and seemed to be filled with power.

"Hello Aaralyn, the light," Darwin greeted with a smile. "Welcome back to the Holy Realm. You are the first to have found your weapon."

I stood up, looking down at the new weapons I had before looking over at Darwin. Without any warning, I would lunge at him, knocking the angel to the ground while my dagger pointed dangerously close to his side. "Are you insane? Why didn't you tell us we'd have to fight to death to gain our weapons? What were you planning to do if one of us didn't win?"

Darwin remained silent as his body faded into golden light. He reformed across the room from me, his wings unfurled and glowing with a golden light. "Whoever doesn't win will perish. I can't do anything to stop that, the same would've been true for me if I had lost against my inner self. But I have faith in you all! You're very strong mortals!"

I wanted to argue with him but was too concerned about everyone else's wellbeing to do so. I truly hoped they'd all be able to win their fights.

Martel's POV
I blinked my eyes open and found myself in a gray room. The room changed to my childhood bedroom and I looked around curiously before a gray orb appeared in the center of the room. The orb began to transform until I was staring at a version of myself. Neat. I waved at the other me and it held out its hand before a bo staff appeared in it. He spun the staff a few times before holding it upright, the butt resting on the ground.

"I assume you know what you must do?" he spoke in my voice.

"I mean, sorta," I replied honestly. "We gotta fight right? Bet."

I summoned the sword of shadows in my hand and activated it, the purple blaze coming to life across its blade. I then slashed the air in front of me, sending a fiery slash at the other me. He would spin the bo staff in front of him, dousing the flames before coming at me. He ducked under my next attack and struck me in the ribs with his bo staff. I managed to take the hit and summoned shadow tentacles to grab the other me, taking his bo staff from him.

"Light work," I stated while my body began to disintegrate. "Goodbye other me."

"Call me Umbra," the other me spoke, closing his eyes as he took a seat on the floor.

Aaralyn's POV
I heard someone take a breath and looked over to see Martel was waking up, holding a black bo staff in his hands, a purple wrap around the center of it.

"Greetings peacekeeper, you are the next to have found your weapon," Darwin greeted.

Martel held his bo staff out in front of him and started to rotate it in a circle, seemingly trying to get a feel of it. After a few jabs he would stop and simply held it. Eventually the others would start to wake up as well, holding their new weapons, even those who didn't have one before. Marquel's weapon had changed from a pair of sai, to a double bladed spear. Shadow now had a pair of kunai, Kai had a pair of katana, and those on Caden's team each had a new weapon. Most of them had swords, though Shen gained chakrams and Emily held a hammer. I was surprised to see even Taisuke held a weapon, a pair of tonfa. I suppose a defensive weapon made sense for him, and they still allowed him to channel chi through his hands.

"And that concludes our first lesson," Darwin said.

"Why do I have two swords instead of one now?" Kai asked, his katanas covered in fire patterns.

"Your true weapon is a pair of katanas," Darwin shrugged. "You all did great beating your inner selves. Now for the second part of your lesson, channeling your abilities through your weapons."

I was about to explain that I could already do that with my old daggers, but then I remembered that the weapons my teammates and I had gained from Ronin had already been elemental in nature. We hadn't been able to replicate the effects of them with ordinary weapons.

"This should come easy to you, you're all naturals at your elements after all, now you just have to apply that to your weapons," Darwin said, whistling as he twirled an arrow between his fingers. "I already demonstrated what I'm talking about when I put you all to sleep. These arrows aren't normally able to do that, I have to channel my ability through them."

"Aren't you going to explain how we're gonna accomplish that?" Raiden asked.

Darwin grinned and shook his head. "Nope. Good luck." He then disappeared.

Did these people want us to win or not? I didn't voice my frustration and instead decided to focus on trying to channel my element through my daggers. Martel looked down at his bo staff before looking around at the rest of us. "Look, I don't know about y'all, but I already figured it out."

He then tossed his bo staff and it turned into one of his shadow minions. Of course he had been the first to figure out what to do, he was the only one who consistently had managed to change his normal bo staff, it probably came natural to him. Dusty spun his daggers and they turned to sand in his hands, floating around his hands before he turned them back into daggers.

"Not too hard," Dusty muttered. "Just have to control the energy coming from them. It's almost the same as using our powers."

I could already feel the energy he was talking about, but I wasn't sure how I could control energy that wasn't coming from myself. The explanation seemed to help both Ash and Ashlyn though, as they turned their blades to smoke and back. Shine nocked an arrow before aiming at a wall. The arrowhead soon started to glow and she fired it, burning a hole through the wall.

"I don't believe I would be able to fire chi blasts from my tonfa," Taisuke said as he jabbed at a wall with his tonfa. A hole was blown into the wall as he struck it. "This will still suffice."

Everyone else started to channel their powers through their weapons, leaving me as the only one who still hadn't managed to solve it. I inspected the blades I held, feeling the power coming from them as I tried to understand what I was missing. A moment later and a thought came to me. Who's to say the energy coming off of the daggers weren't my own? I tried treating the energy as my own, and swung the blades. A sonic boom went off and I let out a delighted squeal.

"Hooray, you've all passed!" Darwin's voice came as he began to come into existence. "Now your last and final lesson shall commence. Please, set your weapons down."

We then placed down our weapons and he snapped his fingers. Instantly our weapons would vanish from sight. "Feel your weapon and call it forth. When you do that, you will always be able to call your weapon to you, and repair any damage done to it."

"Are you actually planning on being useful this time?" Dash questioned.

"What do you mean?" Darwin smiled before holding out his hand. His lyre-bow appeared in it and he started to tear out the strings. "Observe. I feel the damage that has been done to my weapon, and I proceed to mend it with my spirit. It is the hardest ability to master as it is connected directly to your life. As long as you live, your weapon can live, but if you have sustained substantial damage, you may never be able to wield your weapon again." As he spoke, the strings would mend back together until he had a functional bow again. "The same applies to calling your weapon. Locate it with your spirit, and you will be able to summon it."

Martel and Rose almost immediately called their weapons to them. I expected nothing less, they had been the only ones who could ever summon their weapons anyway.

"Lemme try something," Martel said as his eyes flashed. Shadow tentacles emerged from his shadow and grabbed hold of his bo staff, tearing it apart. He closed his eyes for a moment. Several seconds passed before the bo staff started to repair itself. "Ayyyy."

"Excellent work peacekeeper, it is now time for the rest of you," Darwin stated.

And so we all tried to summon our weapons. This proved more difficult than I thought, but we all managed to do so after several hours. Once we had done that, Darwin dismissed us and said that we would finish our training tomorrow with Carolina and Sol. After leaving the room to rest, I would wonder what my brother was doing at that moment. I just hoped we were able to save him in time, otherwise all of the training would be pointless.