Destined: The Six

31. A Simple Test

August burst into the room, wearing a conductor's cap. Jeremiah refused to think about where he got it. He wondered too much already. "Hey," August said. "What is it that you need?"

"We need to go to New Zealand," Jeremiah answered. "The next guardian has challenged him." August nodded dutifully and ran back out, presumably going to his conductor's car. Jeremiah turned back to face Dylan and Heather. "So," he began, "We were talking about Shopkins' plan for world domination?"

About three minutes later, Belle walked in and immediately went to the buffet table to get an apple and scrambled eggs. She, like Dylan, sat and listened while they discussed their fears. As Jeremiah spoke, he thought of if someone found out how to connect Shopkins to the Illuminati.

Later, Tamara joined the breakfast club. She was the one who asked the question. "Why, exactly, are we talking about this?"

"Because it's a more rational fear than one might think," Jeremiah told her. He had prepared that answer, just in case. Tamara shook her head. "Isn't there some more exciting news?" She asked with exasperation. Dylan spoke up. "We know our next location," he answered. "We're going to New Zealand." That was able to cheer Tamara up. "Great. I've always wanted to go. What do we do now?"

"We sit and we wait," Heather answered. Tamara went back to her mildly annoyed mood.

Jeremiah had just talked to Heather, so he instead went to the training room with Marionette. They were going to do an experiment. The experiment not being some sort of chemistry lab that old Mrs. Johnson had made him do when he was in high school, but a test of Shadow Jeremiah's endurance. Jeremiah knew that all of his shadow magic came with a price, but he wanted to make sure he knew how long he and Marionette could stay together as Shadow Jeremiah. Jeremiah and Marionette stood face-to-face, holding hands as if they were doing the Waltz.

Jeremiah once again focused on joining his strength with Marionette's. This time Jeremiah felt Marionette's power as a whale in the ocean, and Jeremiah's power was just an overpriced grouper from the local deli. Jeremiah made his overpriced grouper swim into the mouth of Marionette's whale.

The already powerful whale gained spikes. Jeremiah looked at himself in the mirror that someone had put in the training room. Once again, his skin was replaced with amazing shadowy flames. His eyes glowed a bright purple. Shadow Jeremiah wished his spear into his hand. He hadn't seen it before, but emanating off of the spear were smoky black and silver flames. Everything that Shadow Jeremiah touched or used seemed to gain that effect.

Shadow Jeremiah wished he had an opponent to fight. I know exactly what to do, the Marionette inside of his brain said. A great test of your power would be to try to clone yourself. Shadow Jeremiah was slightly concerned, but his inner Marionette urged him on. He focused his mind on trying to create a clone. Usually, shadow magic didn't require incantations, just focus and willpower.

Such was the same with this. When Shadow Jeremiah opened his eyes, a pitch black him was standing right in front of him. He even was holding a glossy black spear. I'll admit it, Marionette, Shadow Jeremiah thought. I'm impressed. I've never even tried this before.

Glossy Jeremiah was proven not to be anything like the real Jeremiah by charging straight at him, not allowing time to be impressed. According to Glossy Jeremiah, there was time to think about your power after you killed him. Shadow Jeremiah wasn't sure about how glossy clones thought, but it didn't seem like a good policy to him.

Glossy Jeremiah barely had time to be impolite, however, as Shadow Jeremiah ran him through as soon as he got close. Shadow Jeremiah realized that if he wanted a challenge, then he would have to fight an army. Hence the following absurdly stupid decision.

He decided, without any foresight as to any resulting events, to create a whole army of Glossy Jeremiahs. They immediately charged him, those ruthless fools. They all died.

Shadow Jeremiah ran each of them through, one by one by ten. As he relentlessly speared the army of spear-wielding idiots, he wished he had given them wings. That way, fighting metal monkeys could be perfectly simulated. What Shadow Jeremiah didn't understand was that his clones weren't as powerful as he was. He just assumed that, like with Marionette, he had to take time to give them power.

Once every single little Glossy Jeremiah was destroyed, Shadow Jeremiah, utterly proving his extreme lack of foresight, defused. As one with actual foresight could have expected, Jeremiah fainted.

Jeremiah awoke in bed with Heather looking down on him. Before he could say anything, however, Heather slapped him in the face.

"Ow!" Jeremiah shouted in protest.

"You idiot! You know what happens when you combine with Marionette! And what's more, Marionette said you were combined for only three minutes. What did you do that made you faint? Even Shadow Jeremiah wouldn't make you faint after three minutes!" Heather ranted.

"Well, we made a bunch of clones, then killed all of--" Heather slapped him again.

"What if we get attacked by Castle while you're unconscious? He's free now, you know. We need all of us well if we want to defeat him."

"I'm sorry, Heath--" Heather slapped him again, then just shook her head and looked at the wall with an expression that read, what am I going to do with this kid?

Heather left a few minutes later, then Marionette came in. "It's true," the shadow person said. "You really are an idiot."

"Not helping, Marionette."

"Sorry."

Marionette then left the room, leaving Jeremiah with his thoughts. Jeremiah thought about why Heather was so angry. Could it be because she cared about him? But Heather cared about everyone, the rational part of him said. But would she treat everyone hat way? The other part of him asked. The bickering in Jeremiah's mind went on. He hoped it wouldn't be like this.

After all, they needed everyone together to defeat Castle.