Silhouette

James took in a deep breath and readied himself in a fencer's pose, his extended right arm holding a dark blade, his left at his back, and his legs spread in such a way his feet formed an angle, and suddenly thrust forward to pierce his opponent's heart, only for a familiar black humanoid to step back before swatting away at his blade with its own black sword. James stepped back and turned to the side before slashing at his opponent's arm, the faceless dark thing lifting back its weapon at an angle to block the hit and deflect it before it went on to pursue, stepping closer to James and striking again with its blade, and though James managed to block the first hit his opponent didn't relent and kept on attacking and advancing, slowly but surely driving James against the wall.

As soon as his back literally touched the infused bricks of his sewers lair's training room, James melted into the wall before emerging from the ceiling as a massive spike that his opponent silently sidestepped before slashing at it, James' hardened form received the blade with a clung but the act still messed with his fall and sent him to the side where he turned into a small arrow of black gas to speed up and rejoin the wall where he disappeared once more.

His opponent stood still, its blade crossed over its chest, ready to block any surprise attack. When the tips of the spikes that James formed in its shadow rose, the humanoid turned at once and jumped back to avoid them, playing right into James' trap as he emerged from the ceiling once more, this time as a gigantic swinging axe that was headed straight to his opponent's waist. Stuck midair, there was no way for it to evade this attack...

That is until a burst of air escaped from its back and sent it flying toward the wall from which it pushed itself with its feet to redirect itself toward James. As soon as it finished pushing itself off the wall and its feet left the black bricks that composed it, another burst of air escaped from its back and sent it straight to James, its weapon ready to slash at him. James barely had the time to shift from being an axe to returning to a more humanoid form with his own blade to parry his opponent's strike, but even so, the momentum it had gathered was more than enough to overwhelm him and send his sword flying, the weapon dissolving into shadows as soon as it left James' grasp.

James grunted and shifted to the side, just in time to avoid the following strike from his now grounded opponent before forming a tentacle ending in a sharp sickle-like form to block the following attack, his limb elongating to grasp onto its blade and keep it in place while the sickle went for its head. The black humanoid didn't falter and raised its free hand, revealing a small dark dagger it used to deflect the sickle and then cut the tentacle's base, the dismembered limb fading away as the fencer's sword was freed. Rather than press on its advantage, the figure jumped back and repositioned itself, its blade extended to the side as it fiddled with its dagger, alternating between holding it to stab and to slash.

James mirrored its choice, rather than rush mindlessly he took a step back and shifted his form, this time returning to his Silhouette guise, with dozens of tentacles at the ready at the base of his body, reaching out from the ground.

Silence reigned as the two faceless fighters stared at each other for some long seconds until at last one dared to act.

With another burst of air escaping from its back, the humanoid threw itself at James, though its blade only met empty air as he turned into a cloud of gas on its upper half and dispersed, before his gaseous part quickly merged back into the base of his torso, just in time for balls of dark energies to form around the two fighters before they all converged to James' opponent. The humanoid didn't even try to fight them off and instead used another burst of air to jump out of the way only to be caught off guard as all of the spheres it would have passed by turned into crosses, spikes of much more unstable energy emerging from the balls and standing in the humanoid's way.

The momentum of its air burst made it move too quickly to have the time to try anything else, and it couldn't stop itself from impacting this new obstacle.

James held back a grunt as his clone went into his altered Shadow Balls and got shredded by the raw magic that escaped from them. His shadow magic shenanigans hurt him much less than the Titaroach's electricity or the enchanted blades of Pierce Evil but suffering so much damage at the same time still stung.

James released his focus and let the magic attack fade away, just as the shadowy matter he had used to form his clone and its blades returned to him. Controlling two "bodies" at once was weird, but not any stranger than his usual state of matter shifting or mass of tentacles tricks. The only difficulty was finding a way to keep the two bodies connected, since any part of James that was separated from him just dissolved into darkness before melting back into him. A solid tendril connecting the two would have complicated the training, but in hindsight, the solution was pretty obvious. He just had to make sure their shadows formed one, even if it meant twisting it beyond what should be naturally possible. This wasn't about tricking people, for now, it was just for him to have a sparring partner.

Training with oneself may not exactly be as effective as training with a professional, but the existence of shadowboxing showed it still helped improve. Plus, as far as he was aware, none of James' employees or infused had a similar fighting style to Pierce Evil's, so mimicking it himself was the best he could do. He had trouble reaching the same speeds the golden knight had shown, but what he could imitate was enough to start developing strategies better than just throwing more tentacles at the problem. He still had a few more spells he wanted to get a better grasp of before the inevitable return of Runar's minion, but he was already happy with what he had come up with so far. Getting hit by his own spells was also a good way to train his pain resistance, which was a notable bonus. Hopefully, it would prevent him from being distracted by the pain of getting shredded with a magic sword.

"A remarkable display, master."

Although he didn't need to turn to see his loyal minion - as much as the word felt uncomfortable - James preferred to do so anyway to show Mischief's leader he had his attention.

"Why thank you, Polisson."

The old rat hummed at James' response from where he sat on his haunches, perched atop one of the contraptions for the parkour course the rats liked to use. After his initial infusion, all of the drawbacks of aging disappeared from the rat, leaving behind a body in its prime covered in black fur with purple highlights with years of wisdom and experience beyond what most rats could ever hope to achieve. The small ocean-blue eyes of the rodent were fixed on James, and the dark energy of the shadowy claw that replaced its missing front paw flowed smoothly, with an occasional spike that turned its abnormally pointy digits into knives before shrinking back.

"I assume that is not all you have to say?"

"No, it is not. If I may, master?"

James nodded, curious as to what the usually discreet leader of his rat army had to say.

"I believe there is a fundamental flaw in the way you fight."

"Oh?"

"It is natural, coming from one such as yourself, a creature of reason. All that I have seen so far obliviously suffer from it too, bar perhaps the young Techlord, but he so rarely has the time to train I can't be sure. But as one born as a creature of instinct? Of teeth and fangs and claws? I noticed it after some time, and that is thanks to your gift, for it gave me enough reason to think further than ever before."

"Enough of the compliments, what is this flaw you speak of?"

"To put bluntly, master, you think too much."

Eh?

"Could you elaborate, Polisson?"

The rat nodded, his muzzle twitching all the while.

"I have heard the tale of your duel with the demon, and-"

"From whom?"

"One of ours who went to the Sunken City. Us rodents are quite social, so listening to gossip was all too natural. Good ears and a boisterous Commando were all it took for the tale to spread amongst our ranks. Worry not master, I already made sure this story and any other we might hear will never be spoken to anyone, especially not in words a loose ear might understand."

"I hope so. I didn't recruit you to gossip, after all. You are a force hidden in the shadows of the sewers, it should be unthinkable for an information leak to come from Mischief."

"I solemnly swear it shall never happen, master. But to get back on track, I heard of how the fight occurred, and after watching you train for some days now, I am certain of my guess. You fight like all humans, master, you think, and so you do one thing at a time. You either attack physically or attack magically and if you appear to do both at the same time it is only a trick to fool your opponent."

"And your point is?"

"Master, you can split into two different entities and fight against yourself, yet never do you use the same tactic against your enemies. That stream of thought that goes into controlling a puppet for you to fight or a tendril to attack one of your children while others attack others, this stream of thought could be using magic instead. Don't choose between clashing swords with your opponent or impaling them with spears of darkness, do both. You have shown you could do different things at the same time by fighting different opponents simultaneously, why not use this ability in duels?"

James stayed silent as he considered Polisson's words. The rodent waited patiently for what he had to say, the energy that composed his claw much calmer than it had been previously now that he had said what he had to.

Try as he might, James couldn't find any way to deny Polisson's analysis. His subordinate was right, James was more than fine with controlling different "bodies" now and then, like when he had made that bunch of snakes for the ratlings to fight. Although he tended to focus on one thing at a time, he still could easily manage handling different opponents all around him, just like how he preferred to imitate a human's senses despite being able to feel a lot more around him all at once constantly. Hell, he technically did practice casting spells while attacking physically whenever he trained his "bouncing" spike trick, after all, he had to aim himself and his spells while choosing the right angle to emerge from the shadows to "bounce" again. Really, the only thing holding him back from constantly splitting his attention was...

I default to thinking like a human, even if I've learned how to use this body.

James stayed silent some more as he thought about what he could do to improve. Exercise after exercise went through his mind, and already he tried thinking about multiple ones at the same time, for trying to change a habit was a battle of every moment. Finally, after making up his mind, he addressed Polisson.

"Thank you for your insight, Polisson. In the future, I'd appreciate it if, like now, you keep those suggestions between us two. Now, I do believe you have matters to attend to."

"Yes, master. I will leave you to your training. Do you have any specific task you wish for me to have Mischief handle? Any resource to locate, threat to terminate, individual to observe? Or should I resume my usual duties?"

"Do you believe anyone among your ranks could be fit to scout Runar's outposts and headquarters? Perhaps trail his workers, while you are at it. The thugs I converted had some information to share, but I doubt any of them knew truly important secrets and details."

"I shall handle this matter personally, master. Your will shall be done."

Polisson jumped off from his perch and landed gracefully on the ground before scuttering away, a sight James was sure would have unsettled him not so long ago, especially without the dark vision he now possessed.

Well. Guess it's time to get back to it, and this time I need to remember to split my attention. Getting unused to a human way of thinking will be a pain...