Crystal jerked the laces of her tennis shoes tight. A mounting giddiness swelled in her stomach, making her hands shake a little as she tied the laces. Tonight was her first training session. Well, her first physical training lesson. For the past three weeks, Kaine had stayed up with her every night, teaching her how to build and control power, clear her mind, and some weird exercise that gave Crystal the impression of floating outside of her body. She liked the last exercise the best, even though it always left her in an exhausted pool of sweat.

Tonight, Kaine was finally going to show her what all of her training was for. He said it was going to be like a test of some kind. Crystal felt excited. Instead of being afraid of failure, she had confidence that whatever she faced tonight she would beat. After all, Kaine’s training methods made her very strong. The other day she’d punched Daniel hard enough to make him fly across the room.

“Are you ready?” Kaine asked, materializing behind her. Or so she thought. Instead of standing right behind her, as her reflection in the mirror suggested, Kaine stepped out of the mirror to stand beside her.

“You have no reflection,” Crystal said in surprise.

“No, I do not. I have no shadow, either,” Kaine replied.

Crystal put a hand on his shoulder, to see if he was a solid matter. She gripped solid muscle beneath the white tunic with the black symbols that Crystal still didn’t understand. She could see the muscles along his arms were well developed but not incredibly bulky. What Crystal didn’t see was the pained expression that stole, fleetingly, across Kaine’s face. Crystal reached up to touch his snow-white hair, but by then, Kaine had his features under control. Crystal brushed the indigo symbol on his forehead, and Kaine felt tears sting his eyes. He blinked once to banish them.

How could he let her play with his emotions like that! Never mind that he was supposedly the most versatile creature in existence in any dimension; he still had hormones!

“Why don’t you have a shadow, if you truly exist?” Crystal asked.

Kaine smiled, smugly, “Because I exist outside reality.”

“…. What,” Crystal asked, not really wanting to hear the explanation.

“Forget it,” Kaine said, “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Crystal said, firmly. Kaine didn’t like to hear uncertain answers.

“Good, I will meet you at the park,”

“The park?” Crystal asked.

“Hey, I’m giving you the home advantage,” Kaine said.

“You make this sound like a game,” Crystal said.

“Maybe,” Kaine said, with enough mysteriousness to make her wonder, and enough smugness to make her want to smack him.

Crystal’s local neighborhood park could be defined as a few low-budget tin cans stuck together. Crystal had no sentimental value for the park; no fond childhood memories had been fostered there. Most memories concerning the park were of trying to ditch her little brother there, but to no avail, seeing as how Crystal’s house was right down the street in plain sight. That and her father’s keen liking for the boy made it hard to justify mistreating him. Crystal kicked at the sandy gravel that was scattered on the park ground to provide children with a safe surface to play on, though Crystal didn’t see how little shards of shrapnel and sharp rocks offered any safety.

Why was she here? Couldn’t Kaine have picked a more interesting setting? And what was the test going to be?

Crystal ran her fingers over one of the grated metal play-tubes, meditatively. Up until now, she had never questioned Kaine and the whole mystic dynasty thing. Aside from Ms. Itemiser, Crystal had never felt like she had been in real danger and Kaine was actually kind of pleasant to talk to. Besides, it wasn’t like Crystal could just tell her parents about Kaine or the Ms. Itemiser incident. What good would it do? Better just to deal with Kaine by herself; he posed no threat.

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Still, some of the things he said confused her, like the part about her other life where she had been a princess. She didn’t feel like a princess. She didn’t feel any different than before, so why should she care about a past life where her mother had been murdered and the Universe collapsed? All of the unanswered questions gave Crystal the impression that she had cut herself and was watching her life bleed out, but she was in complete denial.

During the random reverie, Crystal had been standing still and silent, next to the tin-can playground set. Now, as her reverie reached its end, she became aware of an odd sound. Or rather, a lack of sound. Everything was eerily quite. Even Crystal’s breath didn’t seem to reach her own ears.

She grew tense. Her heart beat faster. Crystal could almost hear the gravel beneath her feet whimpering in warning.

Then a set of white-hot streaks of pain lanced down Crystal’s back.

Crystal screamed and dove forward. She rolled around and came up on all fours. She felt the dirt and rocks sticking to the fresh wounds in her back.

“Damn it,” Crystal hissed between gritted teeth. She couldn’t see the thing that attacked her, but she knew it was there.

She had to concentrate, had to focus, or she’d never be able to fight back. Try as she might, though, her raging mind wouldn’t obey her commands. Crystal heard a telltale whistling, and she leaped to the side. A set of claws sliced the air where she’d been moments before.

Crystal was losing blood and patience. What was it? What had Kaine said about clearing minds? Crystal arched her back, bringing her midsection away from another swipe of claws. Crystal cartwheeled to the left then feinted right only to break off and reel around backward. The stunning display of acrobatics might’ve bought her a little time, but it cost her a lot of energy.

Then it occurred to her that Kaine had said that she shouldn’t try to ignore pain while concentrating, just accept it and get over it. Crystal drew a deep breath and allowed herself to feel the blood oozing off her back, to feel the pieces of gravel now embedded in the gashes. Now she let the breath out, and with it came all of her confusion, frustration, and rage.

Crystal opened her eyes and for the first time she saw her attacker. It looked like some rabid black dog with red eyes. But the joint were larger, the limbs longer and leaner, and instead of having the appearance of fur, the dog’s covering was more like a smeared shadow. The elongated jaw dripped with a midnight blue froth the made the gravel at its feet whither and dissolve.

The dog opened its mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream that tore through the eerie silence that had up until that moment blanketed Crystal’s ears. It lunged at Crystal. Had Crystal had the strength, she could’ve jumped over the dog’s head, much in the same way that Kaine jumped, but she’d lost too much blood. Instead, she stretched out her hand and created an invisible solid wall that slammed the dog’s face flat with a sickening crack.

The monster dog fell back and Crystal drew her left hand back, gathering energy. As the dog gained its feet and sprang at Crystal once more, Crystal pushed her left hand forward releasing the energy. It was like shinning light in the darkest of shadows. The shadow dog hung paralyzed in mid-air. At first it seemed as though nothing had happened, but the longer Crystal’s light stayed trained on the shadow dog, the clearer the dog’s image became. The shadowy appearance solidified, as though resisting Crystal’s light. The dog’s feral cries decreased in intensity and acquired more of a natural sound. The animal’s size decreased and the limbs shrank to normal.

Finally, with a shattering like glass, the darkness cracked and clattered to the ground. Crystal collapsed to the ground, totally exhausted. After what seemed like an eternity, Crystal drew herself up into a sitting position, despite the incredible pain carving up her back. Beside her, a scrawny, chocolate-brown mutt scrambled to its feet. After licking its balls, the dog trotted off as though nothing had happened.

Crystal stared after it, breathing heavily. Then she looked down at the steadily increasing pool of blood that surrounded her. In it, framed perfectly by a gradually decreasing margin of gravel, Crystal saw her reflection. Crystal wasn’t alarmed at the blood, but as she watched her reflection, she began to see someone else. Someone cold and haggard, but delicate and beautiful. It was herself as the princess. Crystal’s blood rippled, and the image altered a little to appear older. Crystal’s mother. It went on to reveal an exact copy of the second image, only harsher and more hostile; Astrea, her aunt.

Crystal’s vision began to blur, but before she lost consciousness, she saw, quite clearly reflected in her own blood, the face of another girl. It was the face of Amanda Levy.